The whole length of aqueduct now under contract, extending from the Croton to the Harlem River, is THIRTY-THREE MILES.

Owing to a turn-out for wages early in the season, the work on the line between the dam and Sing Sing, was somewhat retarded. The promptness of the magistrates of that town prevented the evil from spreading, and the contractors having taken back such of the laborers as they were still willing to receive, and refusing on any terms to employ the

ringleaders of the rioters, order was restored and the work resumed.

But a more fruitful and formidable cause of disaster than casual dissatisfaction with the rate of wages, soon occasioned trouble on the line. The Commissioners, as has been already

stated, bound all the contractors to prohibit the use of ardent spirits, and on the part of these contractors} entire good faith seems to have been observed on that head. But individual cupidity, and want of thought, or of a due appreciation of the consequences, on the part of the licensing magistrates, led to the opening of grog-shops in their worst form, in some of the neighboring farm houses, and in shanties erected for the purpose without the line where the contractors could exercise any authority. Here the poison was freely sold, and although the contractors and superintendents exerted all their vigilance to prevent its being introduced on the line, and repeatedly discharged laborers who were found intoxicated, the "enemy of man," as it is justly called in the report, prevailed so far, that in the month of April, during a drunken frolic, one of their ancient national feuds broke out among the Irish laborers, and under the respective denominations of Corkites and Fermanaghs, the two parties rushed into a desperate fight, in Avhich one man, named Baxter, was killed, and very many were wounded and mangled in a shocking manner.