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Funded and floating debts created at sundry times and
for various purposes...................................................................I 9,889,401.51
Guarantees for internal improvements and debt for
water supply and public parks...................... 12,205,102.48
To which may be added for Union railroad bonds guar-
anteed .................................................................... 500,000.00
City Hall and other extraordinary expenditures................. 2,000,000.00
$24,604,503.99
It is proper to say that for the absorption of this debt
there is in various sinking funds at this time............ 5,621,208.07
Which deducted, still leaves.......................................$18,983,295.92
The annual interest upon this total debt will be as
thus computed...................................................$ 1,476,270.24
In part payment of this sum there is re-
ceived from various sources, to wit:
Baltimore and Ohio railroad five million
loan ........................................................$300,000.00
York and Cumberland guaranteed bonds..... 30,000.00
Western Maryland railroad bonds............... 12,000.00
Water rents........................................ 267,068.17
City passenger railway, for interest on
park debt.......................„................................... 33,237.98
Baltimore and Ohio railroad dividend on
$8,500,000 stock .................. 280,000.00
—————— 922,306.15
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Leaving of annual interest to be provided for by taxa-
tion or otherwise, the sum of .$ 553,964.09
Great abuses of power and public confidence have grown
up in our city management. With a shameful disregard
of the true interest of government and the interest of the
citizen and taxpayer, large sums of money have been
drawn from the city treasury, merely to bestow patron-
age upon partisan favorites. The councils have sanc-
tioned the clandestine use of large sums of money with-
out accountability, and for unworthy purposes; and in
this way much of the city debt, and also a large propor-
tion of the annual expenses of the city government, have
been brought about. Cases of individual corruption were
indicated to the committee, but they did not feel them-
selves at liberty, under the order of the Convention, to
investigate them, because it would have involved more
time than was deemed necessary to bestow, in establish-
ing by official testimony that which is so currently re-
ported, and, we think, with just foundation, believed.
Economy in government is at all times a commendable
virtue. At the present it rises to a point of importance
518
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