of Public Efficiency. The purposes of this Bureau as stated in its plan of organization are: (1) to scrutinize the systems of accounting maintained by the eight local governments of Chicago; (2) to examine the methods of purchasing materials and supplies and to investigate the letting and execution of contracts for municipal construction; (3) to scan the payrolls of all local governing bodies with a view to detecting overpayment or waste; (4) to make constructive suggestions for improvements in administration and to coöperate with the city officials in the installation of these improved methods; and (5) to furnish the citizens with accurate information concerning public revenues and expenditures, thereby encouraging an interest in efficiency and economy.

The seven reports thus far issued by the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency deal with the method of preparing and administering the budget of Cook County (January, 1911); the proposed purchase of voting machines by the Chicago Election Commissioners (May, 1911); street pavements laid in the city of Chicago: an inquiry into paving materials, methods and results (June, 1911); the electrolysis of water pipes in the city of Chicago (July, 1911); the administration of the office of recorder of Cook County, Ill. (September, 1911); a plea for publicity in the office of county treasurer (October, 1911); repairing asphalt pavements (November, 1911).

A municipal reference branch has been established by the Public Library of St. Louis with Mr. Jesse Cunningham, recently of the State Library at Albany, in charge. The reference bureau has been installed in the City Hall and will be maintained for the purpose of supplying municipal information and data to the city assembly and the various administrative departments. The Civic League of St. Louis, which had brought together a large collection of material for its own use, has now turned this over to the Municipal Reference Branch.

During the last few months proposals to adopt commission government charters have been defeated in Pittsfield and Cambridge, Mass., and in Vancouver and Olympia, Wash. Commission government has been adopted by popular vote in Oshkosh, Wis., Sacramento, Cal., Lexington, Ky., Lowell and Lawrence, Mass., Manhattan and Chanute, Kan., Ridgewood, N. J., and Fremont, Mich. Pueblo, Colo., has adopted a commission charter which includes the Grand Junction plan of preferential voting. Bristol, Conn., has adopted a

new charter which contains some features usually found in the commission plan. The elective officers consist of a mayor, six councilmen, city treasurer, three assessors, two auditors, and a board of relief made up of three members. The idea of the city is to combine the commission method placing the supervision of administration in the hands of a few men with the entrusting of certain technical branches of the service to officials who are directly elected and not subordinate to the commission.

Under the provisions of the New Jersey law permitting the establishment of commission governments in municipalities of that state, nineteen cities have placed the question before their voters. Of these seven have declared for the plan and twelve against it.

The total number of cities having commission government now stands at 163 scattered through 33 different states. In addition active agitations for the adoption of the plan are now being carried on in Omaha, Neb., Portland, Ore., Baltimore, Md., Denver, Colo., Superior, Wis., and Salem, Mass.

From the United States the commission government propaganda has worked over into Canada and proposals for adopting this scheme of administration will shortly go before the voters of two Canadian cities. One of these is St. John, N. B., which some months ago voted to permit the preparation of a commission charter and the presentation of this to the voters at a later date for decision. The other is Ottawa, Ont., the Dominion capital, where the question will be presented to the voters at the coming annual election. The proposed St. John charter contains provision for the initiative, referendum and recall.

Of the large number of cities which have had experience with the commission form of government during the last few years, only one as yet has voted to re-establish the system of government by a mayor and aldermen. This is the city of Chelsea, Mass., which, since the fire of four years ago, has been ruled by a commission of five members who were originally appointed by the Governor. At the November elections the voters were called upon to decide whether they wished to continue this commission with the elective membership or to re-establish the system of government by a mayor and a single-chambered council. The latter alternative was adopted by a small majority.

The outcome of the municipal election in Cincinnati on November 8 was a notable victory for the cause of good city government in the

Middle West. Cincinnati has long been at the mercy of a reckless political machine which has never hesitated to use the city patronage for its own partisan purposes. Mr. Henry Hunt, who has just been elected mayor of the city, was a candidate on the Democratic ticket, but he drew the support of a large number of Republicans. His candidacy was backed by various civic and reform organizations.

The short ballot committee of the Municipal Association of Cleveland has printed a careful report upon the need of a short ballot in Ohio. The report discusses the advisability of reducing the number of state, county, and municipal elective officers from about seventyfive (the present total in Cleveland) to less than twenty-five.

At the election of November 8 the voters of Cleveland, by the necessary two-thirds majority, approved a bond issue amounting to two millions of dollars, the proceeds of which are to be expended for the erection of a municipal electric lighting plant which will provide not only for the illumination of the public streets and buildings, but will supply light and power for private use.

Mayor Carter Harrison of Chicago has approved the plan for the establishment of a Housing Bureau in the city's Health Department, this bureau to have the services of sixty additional inspectors who will make a careful examination of tenement house conditions throughout the city. This action was urged upon the mayor by a number of civic organizations.

In accordance with the suggestion by Mayor Gaynor, the New York Board of Aldermen reduced by over eight millions of dollars the expenditure budget submitted by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. Among the chief departments to which this retrenchment was applied is the Department of Education, in which the estimates were heavily cut at several points. Hitherto the Board of Aldermen has been more prone to raise than to lower figures submitted to it. the present instance, the action is presumed to show the existence of an understanding between Mayor Gaynor and the Board in a joint effort to out-general the Board of Estimate and Apportionment which alone of the three is not under Tammany influence.

In

The Department of Health of New York City has been encouraged during the last few months in the task of investigating and overhauling the conditions under which a large part of the baking is done in the more crowded sections of the city. Over two thousand bakeries have been inspected by officials of the department, the inspection covering such things as the quality of the materials used and the con

ditions under which the making of bread is carried on. The inspectors found the situation in many cases to be intolerable from a sanitary point of view and used their plenary powers to close up about a score of the most unsanitary establishments. Most of the others were required to make important changes in their methods or appliances.

The Third Annual Convention of the Commission Government Association of New York State was held at New York on October 13. The president of the Association, Professor H. S. Fairchild of the University of Rochester, gave his annual address on "Causes of Bad Government in America," attributing municipal shortcomings chiefly to the spoils system and lack of publicity. An address by Hon. George L. Record of Jersey City on "The Primary and Election Law Reform" was one of the features of the convention.

In San Francisco the new Rolph administration, which assumed its duties on January 8, has pledged itself to bring about certain changes in the existing system of city government which will mark a radical departure from the actual methods hitherto practised in the city, although it will not appreciably change the general framework of government. Under the new proposals the chief governing organ of San Francisco will continue to be the Board of Supervisors, composed of eighteen elective members. Each supervisor, however, will be placed in charge of some department of city and county affairs and in the management of this department will have the assistance of a committee. It will be noticed that this change would bring the administration of San Francisco a long way in the direction of full similarity to existing machinery and methods of administration in German cities.

The electors of Los Angeles, Cal., voted at their recent election, upon a proposal to establish a municipal newspaper. The proposal was placed upon the ballot by means of an initiative petition. The suggestion was for the appointment of a committee of three members to undertake the publication, which would be financed by city funds. The paper would appear weekly, would be sent free of cost to every voter and would be non-partisan in attitude.

A movement has been set afoot for the consolidation of Los Angeles and Pasadena. Both cities have difficult water-supply problems confronting them and it is felt in some quarters that united action in the solution of these ought to be secured.

There have been consolidated into one large commercial organiza

tion, called the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, what were formerly the Chamber of Commerce, the Merchants' Association, and the Downtown Association. Before this consolidation the commercial interests of San Francisco were not able to exert an influence in keeping with their numbers and importance, and it is proposed to secure this through a merger of organizations similar to that which was effected in Boston a few years ago.

San Diego, Cal., has taken up scientific forestry as a municipal enterprise. The city owns approximately seven thousand acres of land suited for forestry development and it has made a beginning in this direction by setting out during the past year forty thousand seedlings. Everett, Wash., voted on November 7 to establish the single tax system as one of its normal methods of raising municipal revenue, and in Seattle an initiative petition has been circulated asking for a vote upon the same question. In Vancouver, B. C., the system has been in operation for some two or three years.

The League of California Municipalities has strongly endorsed the policy of local option in matters of municipal taxation. At its last meeting a committee of three members was appointed to draft a constitutional amendment which, if adopted, would give each California city a right to determine the scope and incidence of its own local taxation.

By the action of the voters in November the constitution of Massachusetts was amended to provide that hereafter cities might be given statutory authority to take larger areas of private property than that actually required for the widening of public thoroughfares. This amendment is intended to facilitate various street reconstruction projects which are shortly to be undertaken by the city of Boston. A proposed constitutional amendment of somewhat similar import was rejected by the voters of New York.

The annual report of the Boston City Club for 1911 shows the Club's membership to be 3117. In every way the Club has been a very striking success. Although it has been lavish in its provision of entertainment for its members, a surplus of $18,500 is reported for the year. Plans for a new and greatly enlarged club house are now under consideration.

In February, 1910, the Baltimore, Md., Charter Revision Commission, appointed by Ex-Mayor Mahool, submitted its report with a draft of a proposed charter to the legislature, where it failed of