and wards. In Berlin not less than 3,396 commissioners are appointed in more than 200 divisions, corresponding to the wards of the town, presided over by commissioners and deputy-commissioners appointed by the Government. These ward commissions assess at

the same time the communal income-tax, under the presidency of a city commissioner. For the assessment of joint-stock companies and other corporations, there exists a special commission, presided over by an alderman and consisting of six town councillors and about as many bankers, &c. As there are a great many appeals against the assessments, a court of review has been formed-a revising commission of citizens-who decide finally-in matters of the State income-tax under the presidency of a State commissary.

On account of the close connection of both assessments we will speak at once of those municipal taxes.

V. Since the year 1815, in Berlin a house and rent tax has been levied as the ordinary direct municipal tax, whilst the other towns of the monarchy exhibit a bewildering variety of systems of taxation, arising from the excessive autonomy of the German communes. This house and rent tax is levied, like the English poor-rate, in proportion to the amount of actual rent, or a rent at which the tenement is reasonably expected to be let. Of this annual rent the owner of the property pays at present 23 per cent., a very low rate indeed; but it must be borne in mind that the State claims a house tax of 4 per cent. The occupier pays at present a tax of 63 per cent. of his rent. A compounding of rates is not allowed; but the tax of the smallest dwellings is often remitted. The assessment of this rate is made by a large assessment committee, called Servisverordnete, a name due to the fact that its members (310 at present) have to superintend the billeting or quartering of soldiers; although the practice of quartering the soldiers on the citizens is now rarely resorted to, as the barracks suffice for the standing garrisons. In regard to these taxes, too, cases of appeal are frequent; they are brought before four revising commissions, presided over by a town councillor. decision of these commissions is final.

The

This ordinary city tax used in former times to be raised from time to time when the other sources of revenue did not prove sufficient. For this, other sources were restrained to a modest share in a State tax on malt liquors, to a local tax on dogs, and to several fees and duties. The excise, which used to be levied on meat and breadstuffs (Mahl und Schlachtsteuer) had in modern times to be abandoned according to the modern principles of taxation, and on account of an impossibility of levying it. to supply the budget by a direct bye-laws of the city, and raised

So it became at last unavoidable urban income tax, introduced by according to the principles of the

State income tax. The rate of this municipal income tax is at present in Berlin quite as high as the State income tax (3 per cent of the income), and the assessment combined with that of the latter. For a general control of the levying of all municipal taxes a central board (Steuer- und Einquartierungs-Deputation) has been formed, consisting of five aldermen, twenty-two town councillors, and seven select citizens, divided into three divisions, with a numerous staff of clerks and 230 paid tax collectors.

C. The different branches of the Financial Self-Government correspond in general to the functions which the old English law laid upon the parishes, or which, under the new system, are performed by the boards of guardians, sanitary boards, highway boards, school boards, and by the town councils as administrators of the property of the borough. Whilst, in the magistratical self-government, functions of the State are performed by municipal organs : in the following section, the original functions of the communes are performed under the control of the State authorities. It is to the praise of the German communes that they have preserved to the citizens a high degree of constant and independent activity in this department.

I. The relief of the poor is in Germany independent of a central poor-law board; nor does it rest upon a system of poor-law unions, workhouses, and relieving officers; nor upon any such organization as prevails in the English Local Government Board. Legislation has been satisfied with a plain law of settlement, which charges the town and village communes with the maintenance of their poor (among whom, also, those casual poor are included who do not belong to the parish). In certain cases, the provincial communities are under obligation to aid the small communes; but all the detail of the administration is left to the judgment of the selfgoverning communes, reserving the right of the State authority to interfere in case of abuses which occur in small boroughs or villages. However, it must be borne in mind that in Germany poverty and distress have not yet assumed so acute a form as in many parts of Great Britain.

For the administration of the relief given to the poor, Berlin forms one united local and provincial district, and defrays the necessary expenses out of the general revenue of the town. The supreme direction is entrusted to a central committee (the Armen-Direction), consisting of an alderman as chairman, eight other aldermen (among these one of the two legal advisers, the treasurer, and one of the two school councillors), seventeen town councillors, and ten select citizens, with a staff of clerks and servants. This body exercises a general direction, corresponding with other public offices, controlling bills and accounts, &c. The special work of relief is performed by 223 local poor commissions, corresponding with the wards of the

metropolis, presided over by a chairman, who receives 180 marks a year for his clerk, and must be in his office one hour every morning to give audience to applicants. The commission is formed of between four and twelve citizens as honorary members, and the town councillor of the district as ex officio member. 1594 citizens are thus employed, conscientiously and thoroughly performing the duties of relieving officers. Pecuniary aid is generally granted in monthly instalments, from three marks to thirty marks and more, according to the requirements of the case. For children under fourteen, extra assistance, from four to ten marks monthly, is granted. For temporary distress, temporary assistance. In winter, fuel is distributed and soup-kitchens are established, for the use of which tickets are issued. Moreover, certain lands belonging to the city are let out to the poor, who plant potatoes on them. Medical assistance and medicines are given gratuitously: the sick are nursed in hospitals, the dead are buried at the public expense. Idiots deaf and dumb, and neglected children of poor parents are taken care of in institutions maintained by the municipality (a workhouse exists only for vagabonds or for altogether unworthy persons). Eighty-one physicians for the poor are employed by this board, twenty-three of whom give their special services gratis. 182 men (Stadt-Sergeanten) are engaged by this board to go on errands and to watch the people in the workhouse. The board of guardians for the poor takes also care of the neglected children, who are to be placed in private families or in private industrial schools. There are special boards of trustees for the great City Orphan Asylum, for the Friedrich-Wilhelm Hospital, for the workhouse, and for the instruction of blind children. A number of hospitals (eight) exist for poor people invalided by age, under boards of guardians. Add to these a number of foundation hospitals for invalids, which, however, no longer suffice for the purpose, owing to the rapid growth of the town. For the homeless poor and homeless families two asylums are maintained by the town with the co-operation of private charity. The whole cost of the relief of the poor amounted in the year 1881-82 to 5,204,648 marks, from which sum 635,711 marks must be deducted as a revenue derived from this source. The pay of the physicians for the poor amounted to 45,503 marks; the cost of the administration itself to 46,617 marks.

II. The building and the sanitary departments of the metropolis have to meet the same wants which have made the administration of London and Paris so enormously expensive. In Berlin, too, these departments have to maintain costly institutions and a large number of paid officers.

For the execution of the numerous municipal buildings (offices, schools, bridges, &c.), a municipal building committee (Baucom

mission) has been formed, under an (unpaid) alderman, as chairman, of eight other aldermen (two of whom are the city architects), and sixteen town councillors, meeting in two divisions, one for buildings above ground, the other for those below ground. For both, fourteen building inspectors are at work, with their clerks.

A municipal fire brigade was founded in 1851, and is maintained (1882 = 1,428,000 marks) at the expense of the municipality. It has gradually become a model institution of the kind. This force, in a military formation, consists of a director, nine officers, twentythree telegraph clerks, 750 men, under the supreme government of the Chief Commissioner of the Police.

For the cleaning and watering of the streets a special board has been appointed, consisting of four aldermen, eight town councillors, ten inspectors. The surface of streets to be cleaned is calculated at 6,078,000 square mètres. The removal of dirt and of snow, as well as the watering of the streets in summer, has been let to private undertakers.

The great network of the streets of Berlin has been covered within the last fifteen years with a vast system of tramways, the working of which has been abandoned to a joint-stock company, with the obligation of providing all the streets in which tramways are laid down with the best pavement, and of paying over to the municipality a certain percentage of its gains-a source of revenue for the town which will in a few years amount to a million marks a year.

The surface of the streets of Berlin, the paving of which has been undertaken by the municipality, is calculated at 4,281,845 square mètres. According to the importance of the neighbourhood, a scale of pavement has been fixed upon--asphalt, wood, iron; for the most part, however, stone pavement of eight different classes.

The streets of Berlin are in general lighted with gas; a few of the leading thoroughfares with electric light. Originally an English company obtained a monopoly for the manufacture of gas for twenty-five years. At the expiration of that time the town itself undertook the making of gas, without, however, excluding the English company from competing. The Board of Control (Curatorium der Gaswerke) consists at present of two aldermen, five town councillors, two select citizens, with an executive staff of directors, clerks, and bookkeepers, for the five chief establishments, and of nine district inspectors. The municipal gasworks produced in 1882, 65,000,000 cubic mètres of gas; the English company, in 1881, 27,075,000 cubic mètres. These establishments furnish at present an excellent gas at a low price (1s. 5d. the cubic mètre); the revenue derived from this source amounts to 13,317,702 marks; the annual cost to 9,331,400 marks.

The water supply, also, is in the hands of the municipal

authorities. There are two enormous conduits, which provide the town with a sufficient quantity of water for a moderate water-rate. This institution is controlled by a board of two aldermen, four town councillors, two select citizens, under the direction of two first-rate engineers and five inspectors. The revenue derived from this item amounted in 1881-82 to 4,134,924 marks; the expenditure to 3,098,557 marks.

A work of even vaster dimensions is a complete system of sewerage (Canalisation). The whole city is divided into seven districts (radial systems), in each of which a central pump-work has been established, by which the sewage is forced into the sewers. The valuable material is spread by a network of pipes over large fields (Rieselfelder), which produce rich harvests of vegetables and fruit. Several manors had to be bought in the neighbourhood of the city, and more will have to be purchased, in proportion as the work advances, which will soon be completed. The whole work is executed by one chief engineer, a man highly eminent in his profession. The completed divisions are managed by an inspector and a machinist; the farms by a staff of inspectors, gardeners, and drain-masters. It is difficult to say whether this system will suffice for ever; but it has effectually stopped the serious complaints formerly heard about the Berlin sewers. The work is maintained by an annual sewerage-rate of one per cent. of the annual rent.

The Sanitary Department of the administration has been slower to attain its due importance in Berlin than in other capitals; the comparatively healthy situation of the town, and the wide and open streets prevented for some time a full appreciation of the dangers of so vast an accumulation of human beings. But the city authorities are now fully alive to these dangers, as appears from the reform of the sewerage system spoken of above. Two commissions have been formed for the control of health; one, The General Board of Health, under the Chief Commissioner of Police as chairman, consisting of aldermen, town councillors, physicians, and other experts; another, The Municipal Board of Health, chiefly for the control of the city hospitals and public health institutions, formed of the mayor, six aldermen, twelve town councillors, four select citizens.

A model institution, provided with all the newest improvements, is the great City Hospital in the Friedrichs-Hain, finished in 1874. Besides this, there is the flying hospital at Moabit, a suburb of Berlin, two hospitals for sick invalids, and the recently built magnificent lunatic asylum at Dalldorf, which is considered a model institution. An even larger sphere of action, it is true, is that of the great Royal Hospital (Charité), to which we must add a number of foundation hospitals. There are also baths and washhouses and public riverbaths, established by the municipality.