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The Water and Sewerage Bills

About This Item

  • Title: The Water and Sewerage Bills
  • Date: 22 March 1859
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00645
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 22 March 1859: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Elva Moreno Del Rio Kaylen Michaelis Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The Water and Sewerage Bills." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00645.xml (TEI)
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THE WATER AND SEWERAGE BILLS.

From the lengthened report we have given of the discussion before the Assembly Committee on Thursday, it will have been seen that Mr. Van Cott, on the part of the Water Commissioners, abandoned several of the more obnoxious provisions, and consented to the modification of the bills to an extent which in a great measure frees them from the stigma to which before they are justly open, of being designed to establish an irresponsible and all-powerful triumvirate in the city, authorised by the Legislature to spend the city's money ad libitum, without as much as saying "by your leave, gentlemen," to the electors or their representatives in the Common Council.

No single amendment was agreed to which will not improve the bills both in efficiency of operation and public favor. But they are by no means perfect, yet; and we trust that the delegation will endeavor still further to improve them, by suggesting amendments in Committee of the Whole. We do not see in either bill a provision that the Water and Sewerage Board shall give security—which they certainly ought, to at least as large an amount as the present unpaid Commissioners viz: $20,000 each. The obnoxious and invidious proposal to pay per diem to the Water Committee of the Common Council, while the rest of the Aldermen act gratuitously, is also retained—and it looks like nothing else but a very small bribe. These, with a provision guarding the city's interests more stringently in the matter of the proposed new contract for the conduit with Welles and Co., are among the points which should be looked to by the delegation. We also call on our representatives to compare the bills, when reported, with Mr. Van Cott's concessions, as reported in Saturday's TIMES and to see that every one of them is embodied to the fullest extent in the bills, so that the Water and Sewerage departments may be, to some small extent at last, subordinated to the authority of the people, as exercised through their representatives in the Board of Aldermen.

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