nections with all officers that are not yet installed therein, and all other municipal telephone connections are centered in and controlled by this bureau.
All electric lights authorized by Councils are located and their erection supervised by this bureau. Tests of electric lights so authorized and erected are made by us, and if not up to contract standard, deductions are made from the contracting companies' bills.
By ordinance of Councils, we are required to locate each and every pole for telegraph, telephone, electric light, trolley, or whatever electrical purpose, to issue a license for the same, for which, with the exception of the trolley poles, a fee payable at the City Treasury is charged. No poles or wires can be erected within the city limits without a permit issued from this bureau, describing its location, if a pole, and its direction, if a wire.
All conduits for municipal electrical purposes authorized by Councils are laid by this bureau, as are cables necessary for the connection of the various municipal electrical services. All scientific electrical tests of cables are also made by this bureau.
As a member of the Board of Highway Supervisors, the Chief of the Bureau is required to pass upon the location and position of all electrical constructions under and over the highways, and to approve of the materials used and the methods employed in its installation and maintenance. All minor details of electrical construction necessary to the needs of a municipality are formulated and carried forward to successful completion."Surely a wonderful work; unheard of, yes—I venture to say, unthought of, in the mind of the most imaginative thinker a century ago!
Search we never so carefully, we can find nothing in the budget or reports of 1800, or for those of many years later, which in anywise approaches or approximates this work—for the simplest of reasons—that electricity had not as yet been harnessed to bring the distant near and to eliminate space. Fancy the constable of 1800 communicating every hour with his headquarters without leaving his beat; or having an alarm of fire sounded simultaneously in every section of the city, no matter how remote! Imagine the look of incredulity which would descend upon a citizen who was told that he could be placed in communication with a city official in less than a minute and without leaving his office!
Our municipalities have grown and have developed along extensive lines to an unexpected degree, and the same factors that have been at work in our national development in the same direction have been at work in our municipal development, and the same observation will apply—the next century's development in our cities will be along intensive lines. Already, we see the tide setting in this direction. Take, for instance, the growing demand for charter reform. During the expansive period of a city, everything is sacrificed to size and numbers; the form and methods of government are considered as of secondary
