The Water Works and the Common Council

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THE WATER WORKS AND THE COMMON COUNCIL.

His Honor the Mayor¹ has convened a special meeting of the Common Council, to be held on Monday evening next,² for the purpose of receiving a communication from the Commissioners relative to the Water Works. It will be remembered that back in the Spring the contractors desired application to be made to the Common Council for an addition of $630,000³ to the contract price, to enable them to substitute a covered conduit for the canal originally provided for beyond Baisley's pond.⁴ The Common Council agreed with the Engineers and Commissioners in thinking that a conduit would be in every way preferable, but were not willing to authorise so large an addition to the contract price. In proceeding with the work, the contractors have since found that the expense of making a proper and durable canal in so light and shifting a soil would be so great, that they could almost better afford to build a new conduit at once; and hence frequent lengthened conferences have been held between them and the Commissioners, in which the contractors have lowered their terms again and again (in one day, we are told, making a reduction of no less than $117,000) until at last they have arrived at the minimum of $110,000, which sum we believe the Commissioners intend applying for on Monday to the Common Council.

For our own part, we have always deemed a canal beyond Baisley's Pond a nuisance, likely only to be the means of fouling the water in its entire length; and if for a comparatively small addition to the original contract price a conduit can be had instead, we think it advisable for the city to close with the proposition. In case the Common Council do not see fit to grant the desired consent, we understand the Commissioners contemplate making sundry changes of detail in other portions of the work (such as substituting wooden railings for iron, dispensing with ornamental work, &c.), and thus saving on other parts of the specifications a sufficient sum to enable the contractors to substitute a conduit for a canal. We do not apprehend, however, that they will be driven to this alternative. The expense of the change has been the only reason hitherto inducing the city to withhold consent from the proposed change; and now that the cost is brought within reasonable limits, we do not expect that the project will encounter much opposition.

In times like these, when imputations of political corruption and venality are so freely bandied about, it is gratifying to reflect that in this matter, where a profit to the contractors of more than half a million dollars was at stake, either they made no effort to bribe Commissioners or the Common Council, or these bodies were beyond the influence of temptation; for certain it is that the appropriation of the $630,000 was promptly refused, and now the same work is offered the city for $110,000.

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