to discharge the duties thus devolved upon them. They are selected because they are Republicans or Democrats or Mugwumps. Perhaps they are politicians, and must be paid for services rendered. It may be that they have influential friends who desire to provide for them in the public service, or for some equally insufficient reason they are placed in charge of interests for the care of which they are utterly incompetent.
A private enterprise conducted on this plan would soon come to a most disastrous result, and every intelligent man would declare that such a result was deserved and inevitable. But seldom is this rule applied in passing judgment on public affairs. There seems to be a kind of undefined belief that public interests can be cared for by almost any persons, or that they can for the most part care for themselves, or that they are in some inscrutable way under the care of that Providence which is said to protect the lives and persons of idiots and inebriates. When the plundering of the public revenue is discovered, when the ballot-boxes are stuffed or stolen, and when by official incompetency or rascality the public safety or the public health is jeopardized, men shake their heads ominously, give a passing moment to reflections on the depraved state of municipal affairs, indulge in a few evil predictions, and pass on to their banks, their factories, or their merchandise, leaving these affairs to drift on to a destruction concerning which the only question is as to whether the dénoûment is more or less remote. Then, when the disaster or evil is upon them, and the effort to provide a remedy can no longer be postponed, relief is sought from some additional legislation or to some new device of administration, rather than by a resort to the simple and common-sense plan of putting municipal affairs in the hands of skilled and honest administrators. As to the methods of securing such officers, I shall have something to say farther on. In the administrations of city governments we find misgovernment manifesting itself in so many forms that it would be impracticable to make note of all its phases. Nor would such an effort prove interesting, even if perhaps it might be instructive.
To those pronounced and flagrant forms of misgovernment which arrest the attention of even the casual observer, I shall not at this time allude, except as I may suggest some method of correction. It wil be well, however, to refer to some less obtrusive instances which may not always be suggested to us in our examinations. And first, let us note the liability to mistake in connection with our public charities. The sentiment which pervades every rank and condition of society, demanding that relief be given to the suffering and that the wants of the needy be supplied, is creditable to humanity. It has, too, most abundant opportunities for exercise. No proposition has been more fully confirmed by the experience of mankind than that "the poor ye have always with you." In many of our municipalities the charge for
