ness street where there is heavy teaming shows no perceptible wear to-day. In residential streets, these pavements have been in use eight years without any repairs and are still in good condition.

The success of this method of road making depends on care in its execution as in the case of all composite work of this character-and I submit for the information of those interested the substance of an interview with the engineer of public works, Mr. E. G. Barrow, covering details of the processes in use here.

Either stone or cement curbing should be placed before beginning the roadway. Cement costs here 50 cents per linear foot and is 6 inches thick, 20 inches in depth, and laid on broken stone or gravel. Corners are rounded and an iron plate imbedded for protection. On business streets, stone is preferable.

An essential in road making is a hard and compact foundation, which can be secured only by the liberal use of heavy rollers (12 to 16 tons) while the base is being prepared.

The grade and camber should be so designed as to carry water off the surface quickly, and all earth above the subgrade should be removed so as to conform to its level-12 inches below the natural surface which subgrade should be thoroughly rolled and soft spots filled with stone.

The foundation must be compact, a solid bed of stone not less than 6 inches in thickness. If the soil is of a spongy nature, large, flat stones are preferred. All interstices should be filled with small stone and gravel, well rolled in. Over this a coating of gravel should be rolled hard and then a layer of tar-saturated stone, not exceeding 2 inches in diameter. These stones before being mixed with boiling tar (8 to 12 imperial gallons to the cubic yard) must be thoroughly dried, either in the summer sun or by exposure on heated plates, until all moisture is expelled.

After thorough rolling, another strata of tarred stone of the same dimensions and thickness is added, rolled and covered with a layer of gravel and quarry chips, also mixed with tar, 1 inch in thickness, to be rolled down from three-fourths to one-half an inch. A top dressing of screenings is then added, and if a light color is desired it may be obtained by adding cement.

Most of the stone used here is machine crushed, but during the winter season it is broken by hand labor and paid for per cord, to furnish employment in lieu of alms to the needy.

Limestone is used because it is abundant, but granite or flint. stone would absorb less tar and stand more pressure and wear.

THE UTILITARIAN PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION AND

THEIR RELATION TO ALTRUISM.*

By R. S. GUERNSEY, of the New York Bar.

PHYSICAL BASIS OF MAN FOR TAXATION.

The prevailing mode of applying taxation to property is with little regard to its influence and effect on man and the growth of the family. It makes property and révenue everything and man and family absolutely nothing. Man is the molecule and atom of a community and is thus the unit in social science, and man and the family should be regarded each as a unit to be considered together in any scheme of taxation, which should be, like any applied science, based on conditions.

In ascertaining the needs and wants of a community we should first consider the physical conditions of the inhabitants, because physical demands are urgent and common to all. The sick and poor and the young and dependent are to be protected and cared for as part of the duties of a municipal government.

The principles of altruism and the dictates of humanity seem at once to say that the helpless must be protected and the young guided and instructed in aims for a higher life and for the best development of a social community. The individual-the unit in sccial science-is followed up and guided and restrained in all his connections with government, law and order and moral influence which may be and usually is largely the result of individual home training, and the feelings of the individual from his own judgment or choice guide him according to the circumstances by which he is surrounded.

The necessaries of common life may be divided into physical, moral and intellectual. Shelter, clothing and food are demanded by physical life. Moral and intellectual life are the results of surroundings culminating in education for the best development of social conditions.

In the early stages of life, up to about two years of age, the supply of the needs of an infant are for physical life and are necessarily about the same for the rich and those in common life. Care for the health and happiness of the infant can only be to the extent

*Continued from page 230.

of simple food and cleanliness and proper clothing and shelter which is demanded by Nature for the physical life of each and every infant alike, without regard to the means or source for the supply of them.

We have sanitary laws and regulations enforced by public law for the protection of life from its dawn until its termination, however short or long the period it may run. If these needs cannot be provided and properly attended to at the private expense and choice of individuals, public officials will attend to them in a manner at the expense of the public, and may, in proper cases, compel individuals to bear the expense and observe proper care.

In considering the needs and wants of a community for its proper development we must ascertain the probable physical status in conditions of the inhabitants. In cities like those in New York State in each ten thousand persons enumerated by a census there will be found about 247 under one year of age; 1,058 one year and under five; 1,221 five years and under ten; 1,107 ten years and under fifteen; 1,078 of fifteen years and under twenty.

It thus appears that there will be 3,623 of ten thousand under fifteen years of age who are largely dependent on others and need instruction. This is more than one-third of the whole number. Only one-half of the ten thousand will be over the age of nineteen --the other half will be under that age. One hundred and fiftythree will be seventy years of age and over. The sexes are usually about equally divided at the age of twenty.

Males predominate until about ten years of age, then females until about fifty years of age, then males up to sixty, then females.

As the age increases above nineteen years the number surviving at the same age decreases each year until all are dead. One-fifth of the whole are between twenty and thirty years of age. Nearly two-fifths of the whole are between the ages of twenty and fifty, and less than 10 per cent. are over fifty years of age. The science of life insurance is constructed on data of ages and mortality of adults. In order to be properly available as a science and financially safe the number included should be large. The larger the number of persons to whom it is applied the more exactly can it be calculated as to the probable expectancy of length of life at any age to require annual payments by the insured in such amounts that the science of mutual insurance can be administered on a safe and sure financial basis. The individual and his age is the unit for the basis of this science which gives protection and appeals to the feelings of all, and is thus voluntarily maintained by the nat

ural altruistic feelings in man to provide for the helpless and dependent family in cases of emergency.

The social conditions and relations of the component parts of every community is an important element in legislation which must be considered with some degree of knowledge, and not left to mere guesswork. By resorting to the census we can learn that in every ten thousand inhabitants will be found about 3,600 of both sexes that are in the marriage relations, not including widows and widowers. The number of families as such will be about 2,100. The number of dwelling places will depend largely upon the class and occupation of the inhabitants and whether in a large or small city. The average number of children living in each family will be about two or more. More than one-fourth of the number of persons born die previous to the age of seven years, and more than one-half of the number of persons born die previous to the age of seventeen years. It must be true that the lack of proper provision for the necessaries of early life are the cause of much of this mortality.

The physical necessaries for consumption demanded in every stage and condition of human life can only consist of habitation, flour, meat, potatoes (fruit), water, fuel and clothing and can only be varied in kind and not in degree or quantity for health by any individual. Every person must have these in some form or substance, more or less. They are primary necessaries of life.

If the supply and use of these articles is more or less than is necessary and wholesome for the natural demands, it is harmful to the individual, and through him harmful to the community of which he is a member, and is a detriment to its development and growth and a hindrance to the other members of which it is composed.

Whatever has a tendency to make it difficult to obtain these demands in the struggle for existence must be a detriment to the happiness of the individuals so situated and by sympathy affect others. It cannot be possible to have a community that is completely satisfied-all the units in it. We can only suggest that the effort should be to make the best of it by providing ways and ineans for the greatest good to the greatest number as near as can be determined by observation and continuing in a systematic and scientific manner such laws and regulations as are necessary for that purpose in place of those that are found in conflict with such an end in view.

To do this most effectively is to consider the family and its com

ponent parts. The physical and mental condition of its head is all important, he being the provider for the wants and needs of those who are dependent on him. The feelings of all the family must be reached through him by appeals to his head, heart and hands. The family contains the correlation and conservation of forces that make up a community from which springs true and ardent patriotism.

A provision by life insurance is voluntary, but taxes are inexorable and necessary and unmerciful, and if unjust and oppressive, they are cruel and destructive of the ends of government. To alleviate such effects is worthy of the closest and most careful study of the subject of taxation so as to make a science of its application. We should pursue scientific methods in investigating the subject of taxation and study its economic relations and ascertain how taxes can be disseminated and be appropriated for the greatest good to the greatest number of the inhabitants and for the further protection of the primary necessaries of life so as to render them less difficult to obtain.

While some laws would work well enough in sparsely populated localities and their harmonious use in an easy-going community of simple habits chiefly of one occupation, they would not be suitable when applied to all manners and conditions of people where their occupations are diverse and made intense by the struggle for existence and for supremacy and ambition, and where every conceivable form of gratification and happiness is in full activity and fruition, made keen by an era of luxury and extravagance and the contrast of poverty, want, indolence and intemperance as in any large city.

It is in cities that the demands for just and equitable taxation is most urgent, and where the problem of the science of taxation must be solved and applied. It is there where class taxation is in operation and where unjust discrimination is most apparent. A tax on moneyed capital or for business privileges would cause no complaint in agricultural districts, because it would have little or no effect; in commercial cities it would be quite another matter. In cities all conditions must be considered in such manner as not to be class taxation at the expense of another class of citizens.

This diversity of conditions and their extent in cities is now well enough known, and can be ascertained, to formulate a science of appropriate taxation founded on scientific methods that will be just as well as benevolent, and will give more general satisfaction than any method that has ever been tried among us. The tax