New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-12-01
EyTRAV1G1ACE ~ CITY AFFAIRS.

|
Taxpayers are apt to feel once year al
| least, when they get their Tux bills, that New
| York is costly place to live in. They some
| times ASK in a vague, uncertain way, why the
! c,ty expenses are not cut down. Bur how many
! of them know that those expenses lave been
nearly tliped in twenty years! Progress III
| population since 1850 has been by slow steps
/ advance in cxnavagance has been by enOI
| mons strides. In 1860 Newly York numbered
$4,000 souls, and sprnt $40 140.3jS. This
year t numbers 1,206,j77 souls, and it spends
| 2S,167,992.
The soy of this reckless match toward Iuln
| is told elsewheIe. Men who profit by waste Vi
public money have way of laying the blame
| on the Tweed Ring. II is tine Tweed aud his
fellow thieves left heavy legacy of debt.
But that only accounts for part of the enor-
nous expansion of the annual cost Of the city.
| The tall of Tweed did not end the era of eX-
t1avagance. Many diaries are as high now as
they were then, aud il there is less stealing in
the De artmen's there Is not much more
economy. In 1869, when the Ring was AT the
height of It's power the tax levy was
SOS, 607,009; for this year it is not quite half
million less. That does no. show much say
inc tom the days of colossal frauds. And for
next wear the modest heads of Departments
tIiuk they ought u have over $4,000, 000!
Ibcy show no anxiety 10 tighten the peoples
load. I he Public Burdens Ac has not accom-
plished even the little that was cXpectei of il.
A pretence has been made of complying with
the provision for reducing Department salaries
10 per cent, but it IS only a prettnce. The
difference has been made up in other ways
The only hone of relief Is in the Board of
Estimate and appointment, aud that hope in
tie past has often proved vain. That Board
thus far has cut down the estimates only half
q million dollars. 1t has yet to pass on them
finally No doubt Mr. Kelly. who seems to
have the Board well in hand viii apply the
pruning knife sharply enough to all the De-
partments not under Tammany control. He
has b Ell frugal with the Department of Public
Works since Commissioner Campbell declined
to give Tammany patronage. But uDsparing
reductions mus be made in all the Departments
to bi1ng the appropriations within just bounds.
Mr.. John II. Stiahan, VINO may be considered
an expert in such matters, told the Senate
Committee which is now looking into city
affairs that the Departments could be carried
on efficiently for One-third OF their present
cost. No one expects the millennium inst now
and no one ventures to hope that the Depart
merits will be purged of politics ir this genera
ton. Until that purgHti0n takes place and city
affairs are put on a business footing, any notion
of cutting down the appropriations two thirds
is IDLE. But what the Overburdened taxpayers
of NewYork have a right to expect, and what
they should insist on, Is that a stop shall be
put mme iiately to the prodigality which has
almost tripled the annual outlay in twenty
years; and that there shall be a resolnte intel
ligent effort to bring the cost of government
within reasonable limits.