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never before felt by our people. It is an essential neces-
sity to save us from pecuniary suffering, if not from hope-
less bankruptcy. But in the midst of this startling con-
dition of tilings, the sad experience conies home to us
that economy in the use of public money is a virtue sel-
dom cultivated, and still more rarely practiced. The hands
of those Controlling city affairs, judging from past rec-
ords, know no restraint, and seem lost to the virtue of
economy. Where the public treasure is not guarded by a
moral sense of integrity, it is open to the cupidity of the
unscrupulous.
The mayor and city council, by ordinance approved Sep-
tember 25th, 1865, provided for the appointment of com-
missioners, who were authorized to adopt plans, and pro-
ceed to the erection of a new city hall; and the same or-
dinance directs the commissioners of finance to issue five
hundred thousand dollars of city bonds, and dispose of
them at market rates, and apply the proceeds to this pur-
pose.
The eleventh section of this ordinance required that it
should not go into effect until authority was obtained
from the General Assembly of Maryland to issue these
bonds. In 1866 the Legislature gave their sanction to the
issue of six hundred thousand dollars, and therefore and
to that extent the authority of the mayor and city council
is undoubted, and had the cost of the building hi all its
parts and furnishings when completely finished been lim-
ited to the amount realized from the sale of the bonds au-
thorized to be sold, their legal rights could not have been
doubted. Bot the plan adopted will far exceed the amount
authorized by the ordinance or by the approving act of
the Legislature of 1866, chapter 1.
The architect's estimated cost is eight hundred thou-
sand dollars, if his plans are adhered to and proper econ-
omy practiced. Such a hope, however, is, we think, a vain
delusion, and if the work progresses at all in these ex-
pensive times of building, but little less than a million and
a half of dollars may confidently be expected as the final
cost.
We can hardly suppose, nor do we believe, that the pow-
ers granted in the ordinance of 1865, to use for this pur-
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