countant. All claims or bills against the municipality must pass through his hands and be approved before they can be paid by the treasurer. He must keep separate accounts of each appropriation, and of the dates, purposes and manner of all payments on their account; he must examine and audit the accounts of the treasurer and of all other officials through whose hands public funds pass in any way, and promptly report in writing to the mayor and to the council any default or irregularity he may discover on the part of any municipal officer. No payment may be authorized by him until he has examined the claim and found it to be legally due, and has satisfied himself that the payment has been legally authorized, that the money for its payment has been duly appropriated, and that such appropriation hast not been exhausted.

The only other administrative officers specially provided for by the new law are the health officer and the inspector of public works. Each municipality must make provision for a health officer. He is appointed by the mayor, and his salary, which may not. exceed twelve hundred dollars a year, is fixed by the municipal council. This officer is expected to have charge of, and in the smaller municipalities personally attend to, a great variety of important matters relating to the public health. He thus acts as physician to the poor, sanitary inspector, inspector of cattle to be slaughtered for food, general overseer of hospitals, cemeteries, etc. In addition he performs such other duties as may be imposed upon him by law or by regulations of the Superior Board of Health. He

must make an annual report to the Superior Board of Health and to the municipal council. In municipalities, the total cash receipts of which equal twenty thousand dollars a year, provision may be made for an inspector of public works to have general charge of the carrying out of the work of construction, maintenance and repair of public buildings, grounds, roads, etc. This officer is appointed by the alcalde, and his salary, which is fixed by the council, may not exceed six hundred dollars a year. For the care of the poor, provision is made in each municipality for a board of charities to consist of three persons, two of whom are appointed by the alcalde, the third, the chairman, being ex-officio the municipal health officer. These positions are unsalaried.

In respect to the third branch of government, that having to do with the exercise of judicial powers, the act makes practically no provision. In point of fact the insular government has assumed almost exclusive control over this matter. The system of courts is an insular one, and all judicial expenses are borne by the insular government with the exception of the payment of the expenses of the justice of the peace courts, which are borne by the municipal budgets. For the enforcement of municipal ordinances recourse must be had to these courts or to the municipal courts. It is true that there are, as already described, twentyfour so-called municipal courts, the judges and chief officers of which are elected by the people, but as the expenses of these courts are borne by the insular government, and they are subject to the control of the attorney-general in respect to the manner in which

they perform their duties, they are more properly a branch of the insular than of the municipal government.

From a description of the framework that has been provided for municipal government, or the instrumentalities through which local affairs are administered, we now turn to the consideration of the sphere of activities that has been assigned to the local bodies. The enumeration of the powers of the municipalities is contained in Sections 23 and 24 of the act which provide: "That the councils shall have power, subject to the further provisions of this act, to pass any ordinance or resolution not in conflict with the laws of the island in respect to the following matters: (1) the opening and survey of streets, parks and promenades, and other municipal public highways; (2) paving, lighting and drainage; (3) water supply; (4) public bathing establishments, lavatories and slaughter-houses; (5) fairs and markets; (6) public education and libraries; (7) sanitation and hospitals; (8) public charity; (9) cemeteries; (10) construction of buildings; (11) police regulations in relation to public order and health, and in relation to each of the public functions herein enumerated and to the public welfare. They [the councils] shall have power by ordinance to establish penalties by way of fines not exceeding twenty-five dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding thirty days, or both, for infractions and violations of municipal ordinances and police rules and regulations, to be enforced by proceeding in the proper court.'

Although this enumeration of powers is apparently

a comprehensive one, various important observations should be made. The first of these is that, not only is practically the whole burden of the support of the judicial system assumed by the insular government, but that that body has in like manner taken over the whole work of the repression of crime and the maintenance of order. Owing to the inefficiency of the municipal police forces in the various municipalities, and especially the extent to which they had been used for political purposes, the insular legislature as one of its first acts provided for the definite assumption by the insular government of the work of policing the island. The act by which this was accomplished provides for a body of men to be organized and managed much as a military force. It is under the direction of a chief of police and subject to the general supervision of an insular police commission appointed by the governor with the consent and approval of the executive council. The exact numerical strength of this force is determined by the police commission with the approval of the governor, but may not exceed a total of eight hundred and twenty-six officers and privates. In cities having a population of over nine thousand the governor may, upon becoming satisfied that such city is financially able to maintain a police force and preserve order, withdraw the insular policemen and turn over the care of the public safety to the local authorities. Except when this is done, municipalities are not permitted to maintain a police force. They may, however, provide for the appointment of sanitary inspectors.

In the second place, although among the powers

given to the municipalities those in relation to education and public roads figure, these two very important public functions have practically been taken out of their hands through the extent to which, on the one hand, their performance has been assumed by the insular government, and on the other, entrusted to independent local school boards and boards of road supervisors that have been created to have immediate charge of these matters in so far as they are left to local management and control.

Local School Boards and Boards of Road Supervisors. Provision for local school boards was made by the general educational act passed at the first session of the legislative assembly in 1901. This act provided that the island should be divided into school districts coterminous with the respective municipal districts, for each of which there should be elected at the time of the regular biennial elections an unsalaried school board of three members. Upon these boards was conferred the power to take all such action in reference to the construction of school buildings and the maintenance of schools in their districts as was not expressly reserved to the insular commissioner of education. The most important provision of this act, from the standpoint of the present study, was that which required each municipality to pay over to the school board for its district not less than ten and not more than twenty per cent of all receipts from taxes. This provision was subsequently amended in 1902 so as to make this proportion fifteen and twenty per cent, respectively. Still later, in 1904, it was