Your Committee are of opinion that the expense of this undertaking, the advantages of which will be lasting and permanent in their character, should be provided for by a loan, and they view the present or coming season as one at which this money can be procured at a low rate of interest, probably not to exceed four per cent., redeemable in It would be well secured, as due from a city whose taxable thirty years. property is rated at $125,000,000, and is worth much more. To provide for the $80,000 interest, supposing the expense to amount to two millions, we should have a fair charge on our present citizens. It isbelieved that we have, or within a year or two will have, 35,000 houses and buildings, of which are obliged to build and keep cisterns, while many of our citizens all

purchase water, and all are at the expense of sinking wells and erecting pumps, at an average annual charge, including all these expenses, it is believed, of exceeding eight dollars per house. Now if we estimate that we can charge each house, on an average, four dollars, we have $140,000, nearly double the whole interest. If it should be thought that four dollars is too much for some houses, it may be remarked, that several families, in limited circumstances, generally reside in one house, and that this being the case, the landlord might well afford to pay four dollars per annum but as this calculation of four ;