4 Mr. Arthur H. Muir on 



giving 4 million gallons per day. Filtration beds, Oldpark and 

 Antrim Road Works, Pumping Station, Ligoniel Storage Tank. 

 Mourne Scheme, when completed, consisting of two reservoirs, 

 capable of storing 3750 million gallons, and of giving 30 million 

 gallons per day through a conduit 35 miles long. 



4. Belfast Poor-Law Guardians. — This Board is one elected 

 from the fifteen Wards of the City, together with nine other 

 adjoining districts, making twenty-four divisions in all, each re- 

 presented by two Guardians. In addition to these forty-eight 

 Guardians six are co-opted. 



A very common impression is that the inhabitants of the Work- 

 house consist of a large number of men who won't work, and 

 who are kept in comparative comfort and ease at the expense of 

 the community. As a matter of fact out of the 3,489 inmates on 

 the night of 3rd November, 1905, only 101 were of this class. 

 The balance was made up of 1,437 infirm old men and women, 

 1,544 people sick in the Hospital Wards, 275 children, and 132 

 mothers. The small percentage of healthy out-of-works, who 

 find themselves there, do not get an easy time of it, and usually 

 do far more work inside the Workhouse for nothing, than they do 

 outside for pay. There is, unfortunately, a marked and steady 

 increase in the number of old men, who have been working con- 

 stantly all their lives until a short time previous to admission. It 

 is thought that the Workmen's Compensation and Employers' 

 Liability Acts have been a factor in this. 



A marked feature of all cities during the past 25 years has been 

 the enormous increase in Local Indebtedness. Belfast forms no 

 exception, and Diagram No. 1 gives some idea of the increase during 

 the last 15 years. Along the foot of the Diagram is measured a 

 number of equal spaces, each representing one year, while up the 

 side each space represents one quarter of a million pounds sterling. 

 By placing a point in each year opposite the amount of debt in 

 that year, a series of points result which, when joined by a line, 

 give the best representation of the increase or decrease of debt 

 over a series of years. It will be noticed that the debt of the 



