Morning journal and courier., 1881-12-17
COMMUNICATIONS.
Our City Government.

To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 As the time is near at hand when the new city government will be cast into committees for the year 1882, with over $55O, 900 of the peoples money at their disposal, it is prop CT time to remind them what this transac- ton is for we are sure it is not fully compre- hended.
 1st. They are the peoples agents to ex- pend the peoples money on such follies or necessities as they shall see fit.
 2nd. They have the whole power regard ing the manner in which the people shall be treated in their persons and property.
 3rd. They stand in no fear of city meet ings, for the city government has, through the Legislature, put an end to city meetings, and the people are left to the poor privileges of petitioning their agents, and then half the time receive for answer liberty to with draw" which is but a trihe higher grade than being kicked under the table"
 4th. That the assumption that Mir. Alder man or Councilman being committee man or is on a committee enlarges at once his knowledge, his brains, his capacity and dis cretion, and raises him so far above his tax paying neighbor that whole neighborhood or set of street owners of property are in fants' and know not what they ask for, is 8 fallacy and not a fact.
 9th. That being elected for definite term of office is not a fee simple title to it, and that not being reelected for cause does not make restitution for wastages or vagaries, or outrages perpetrated upon citizens.
 To our system, as republican form Of government, we have abiding objections for from Congress down to pothouse politi- cal manufactories there is neither stability or system. Even in our city government we have none, and never will. Take for instance those things which we call Improvements" :" sewerage for instance. After somebody had decided upon constructing certain main line sewers then all parts of the city was "fallow ground" for A, B and 0 to get in their strip of sewer first and so on regardless of system or of property, and when the sewer money for that year is used up no more sewers that year.
 Then again the same as to paving streets, the ordering of sidewalks, the grading of streets, the widening of streets and the abat- ing of nuisances etc., etc. Instead of a sys- tenn mapped out and defined, so that every thing shall be outlined and advanced in it's order, commencing in the center, where al- ways most is needed and pays the heaviest taxes, then diverging in every direction and taking care of lesser rights and lesser claims, to the end that there shall be system, order and common sense as to the progress of pub lie improvements year by year, and the man ner of appropriating and using $500, ,000 an- nually of the peoples money, remembering that $50O, 900 annually for twenty years at per cent. interest compounded amounts to the round sum of SIS, 390, GOO, and twenty years soon run away.
 There are numerous cases where widenings could not be justified, and there are cases where they have been neglected to the dis grace and the detriment of the city. For instance-Meadow street.-the foot of Temple street. the extension of Brewery street to Sheffield Wharf and across to Long Wharf, and filling in the space for commercial &C., commodations The purchase of Long Wharf and putting it in decent order for commercial purposes, with ample and con- vanient storage and bonded warehouse. Then as to lesser matters. Two years ago there was great fight over, and resulting in, ordering l, 200 feet of pavement at the upper end of Norton street, above the Westville road, where but one house stood on the road, and leaving neglected and in filthy indecency that central highway known as Gregson street, from Chapel to Grown streets, through the property of Trinity church and rear of the postofice, with either no sidewalks ct all or in patches, which rise here and are mud holes there, so that it is neither decent morally, or safe personally, to pass through the street in the evening, to say nothing about daylight.
 Again, making up committees, and the referring of everything to them in such hot