The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-05-13

The property holders of New York are
weighed down by the burden of taxation. The
rate of SO. 40 per cent upon an unjustly in
creased valuation is enormous, especially
when we consider that the work of city
improvement is almost wholly suspended,
that our streets remain in dangerous and dis
graceful dilapidation, that progress in the
upper portion Of the island is paralyzed, that
honest creditors of the city are driven to the
courts to obtain their money, and that the
public debt is increasing more rapidly than
ever through the reckless bridging over
policy of the Finance Department The
Mayor and Comptroller promised the tax
payers great decrease in the rate Of taxa
ton for the present year if they could obtain
the power by legislation to reopen the esti-
mates end reapportion the moneys required
for carrying on the government. The law
they requested on the subject has been
enacted, and on the 18th instant the several
municipal departments are to submit to the
Board revised estimates for the balance of the
year. 1t will then become the duty of the
Board of Estimate and Apportionment to give
us the reduction they have promised. But it
must not be made only by driving over till
next year payments which must then be met
The saving must be one in fact, not in SEEM
ing only, and must be the result of reduced
expenses The departments should all exer-
else the strictest economy in their estimates ;
but the responsibility is, after all, on the
Board; and the Mayor, the Comptroller and
tho President Of the Department of Taxes and
Assessments, who are its members, must cut
down the estimates wherever they find occa-
sion to do so.
On this point we can give them some useful
hints The departments to be the most
closely scrutinized are those which are not re-
quired to give to the public q full and detailed
account of their expenditures. The Park De-
partment may be subjected to great reduc-
ton without any injury whatever to the pub
lie interests, and now that Colonel Henry q.
Stebbins has been restored to the Presidency of
the Park Commission we have confidence that
these reductions will be made. The architec-
tural expenses are unnecessarily large. Mr..
G. Vaux of the old firm OF Olmstead & Vaux,
is Consulting Architect" we believe. and re-
ceives large percentage upon the amount
expended on the Museum of Natural History
and Gallery of Art, insuring him a sum Of some
$25, 900 to $50, 900. Mr.. Olmstead, is Land
scape Architect and General Superintendent,
and we understand that his salary is $4,000 a
year. These gentlemen are also said to have
drawn pay from the city for the time of their
~ kO he
amount of an additional So, 600 or 81, 900 year.
Mr.. Olmstead is Landscape Architect of the
Brooklyn Park, and is allowed by our Park
Department the services of q horse, carriage
and driver at the city expense, which, no
doubt enables him to fill both offices satisfac-
torily. Mr. j. r. Mould is assistant Archi-
tect," at salary of S., 900, and Mr.. Munck-
witz-the real worker of the corps-is
experimenting Architect" at "a, 500. These
expenses will certainly bear cutting down.
The expensive work on the bridge from the
Lake at Fifty-ninth street to the Museum is
unnecessary at this time, and should be dis
continued by the action of the Common
Council. There is ample room in other
directions also for economizing in the Park
Department, and we are confident that Presi-
dent Stebbins will cooperate with the
Board of Apportionment in applying the
pruning knife to all extravagant and useless
expenditures. The Department of Docks,
be to coach, should be made to
cut down its army of idle hangers on, although
its expenses are an addition to the city esti-
mates and not included therein. The Depart
ment of Charities and Correction, now under
suspicion of being ''honeycombed with cor
ruption," should be reduced to the lowest
appropriation possible, at least until its
honesty is established. The street cleaning
swindle should be stopped by cutting off at
least one-half the amount appropriated in the
present apportionment. The enormous ex-
penses of the Finance Department, now more
than one hundred thousand dollars higher
than under the corrupt Tammany rule, should
be largely reduced. The barefaced job of
contingency appropriations is killed by the
law. Not dollar should be appropriated for
any pretended Expenses" of the City Prison
Commission, especially for the benefit of any
individual who is drawing money in any
other way from the public treasury. The
Public Works appropriation should be reduced
as far as consistent with the public interests.
If these economies are practised there will be
real saving to the taxpayers, while the ex-
tension of bonds, the postponement of the
Fourth avenue improvement appropriation
and similar temporary reliefs are only ''bridg-
ing over for the moment, to break ourselves
down with unbearable burdens in the end
PREsBYTERIANIsM Of the old-fashioned
Scotch type is still power in this coun-
try, Notwithstanding the inroads upon it by
the Congregational churches and the more