Doubtless the most prominent public question in Brooklyn just now, (coincident with that of the forthcoming charter election, and of far more real importance than that event) is the one of which involves the perfect completion of the Water-works, and the mode of their future control and management, and, also the inauguration of a grant system of sewerage. These are to affect the nearest welfare the very lives, of many a generation to come—in a city that will soon possess three hundred thousand in-habitants.
The Brooklyn water-works, in all the essentials of their conception and execution, have already taken their place among the first-class achievements of modern constructive science; with the single exception, that of the thirteen miles of aqueduct from Hempstead Reservoir to the great Well-Pump, only five mile were, (by a provision in the original plans,) made a permanent closed brick conduit, and the remaining eight miles were to be left a temporary open ditch, an earthen canal, of the same general nature as many parts of the old Erie Canal of thirty years since, which some of our readers may recollect. But the unanimous opinion of the Water Commissioners, at the instance of all the engineers from whom they have required opinions—indeed the common sense of the case, as can at once be understood by every man of perception, thought and foresight, demands that this provision should be superseded, and that the whole line of aqueduct should be a thorough-built, permanent brick conduit. To make this change the Commissoners [sic] and the Brooklyn public are now determined, asking legislative authority to that purport.
As to the relative merits of placing the onus of finishing the works, and the future control of them, directly in the hands of the Aldermen, or in a special and Independent Board like the present, it is certain that the former would be merging the whole affair in the struggle of city politics, to be used for spoils purposes by party victors—while the weightiest public interests would be left unattended to.
Few in Brooklyn realize the facts, placed beyond doubt as they are, of the signal success of these great works, of their unprecedented cheapness, and of the thorough and conscientious performance of the work, so far, under rigid inspectorship, over the whole line.