continue their work for a year with the sanction of the county councils, and on such terms as may be agreed on between the councils and the boards. Early in the session, a comprehensive bill bringing the school boards into much closer relations with the county councils, was introduced by the Government. It met with much opposition in and out of Parliament. There was so much contention over it, that it had to be abandoned; and to prevent a continuance of the chaos which had resulted from the Cockerton judgment, the Act providing for a continuance of evening classes for a year was passed. It also was strongly opposed by the friends of the school boards in the House of Commons, on the ground that by a temporary Act the government was snatching the assertion of an important and far-reaching principle, and in bringing the school boards into subordination to the county councils, was seeking to effect a revolution in the education system by a side-wind.

EDWARD PORRITT.

Operation of Electric Plants by Massachusetts Towns. During the year ending June 30, 1900, twelve towns in Massachusetts operated electric plants, but not gas works. Several towns carried on both gas and electrical supply, but these are not considered here. An electric plant in one town was first started in February, 1900, and is excluded because it was in operation during only five months of the year named. Of the twelve towns above mentioned, two, Needham and Wellesley, distribute energy for street lighting only. The other ten towns supply both public and private lamps.

The first purpose here is to determine the cost of electric street lighting by these municipal plants per unit of service, and then to compare this cost with the charge for like service by private corporations, in towns of similar size.

The twelve towns with municipal electric plants, and their populations are as follows:

Electric street lighting from both municipal and private plants is done with arc lamps of 800 to 2,000 nominal candle power, and with incandescent lamps of 16 to 60 or more candle power. In order to make a satisfactory comparison between the costs of street lighting in different places, it is necessary to reduce the service in all street lamps to terms of the electrical energy consumed. There is some variation in the rates at which different lamps of the same nominal candle power consume energy, but average figures for good practice can be taken that are sufficiently accurate for purposes of comparison. Such figures as here assumed are, 0.00025 kilowatt-hour for each nominal candle power of arc lamps, during each hour of operation, and 0.0035 kilowatt-hour for each nominal candle-power of incandescent lamps, during each hour of operation. Reports of the Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners of Massachusetts give the average daily number of each kind and candle power of electric street lamps operated in each town of the State. The average number of hours that lamps in each place operate per day, and the average days per month are also recorded in these reports, for each year.

From these data the kilowatt-hours of energy supplied to arc and to incandescent street lamps by the municipal plant in each town are calculated for the year ending June 30, 1900.

The cost of street lighting by each municipal plant is the difference between the money income from commercial service, and the sum of operating expenses, interest and depreciation in each year. Interest for each plant is computed on its total investment at the beginning of the year at the rate paid upon municipal bonds or notes. Depreciation is figured at 5 per cent. on the cost of each plant, as is required by law. The difference between the sum of operating expenses, interest and depreciation, and money income, which represents the cost of street lighting, is divided by the total number of kilowatt-hours supplied to arc and incandescent street lamps in each town. This division determines the true average cost of energy per kilowatt-hour to each town.

Energy supplied to electric street lamps by municipal plants and its cost for the year ending June 30, 1900:

In the twelve towns 987,577.9 kilowatt-hours of energy were supplied to arc and incandescent street lamps during the year at a total cost of $95,487.56. The true average cost per kilowatthour was therefore 9.6 cents. This cost corresponds to a rate of 0.54 cent per lamp-hour for a 56 watt, 16 candle incandescent lamp, and to 2.88 cents per lamp-hour for a 1,200 candle-power arc lamp, using 300 watts. It is not possible to determine the total amount of electrical energy supplied by the municipal plant to private consumers in each town, and the true average price for the twelve towns cannot, therefore, be determined. The maximum charges to private consumers in each of the ten towns where the municipal plants do commercial lighting were as follows:

The sum of these prices is 161, and their rough average is therefore 16.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for the ten towns. Maximum prices to private consumers, as given, are subject to some discounts for prompt payments and large bills, but it seems unnecessary to

consider these matters in detail, because it is impossible to determine the net prices charged to the individual customers of plants owned by private corporations.

The rates just quoted are for energy from incandescent circuits, which supply much the greater part of commercial service.

The next step is to determine the prices paid to private corporations for electric street lighting in towns having about the same populations as have the towns owning municipal electric plants. For this purpose nearly all of the towns in the State, of less than 12,000 population each, and that buy electric street lighting, have been selected. Towns whose electric street lamps are supplied from generating plants in cities are not included because these towns should get the benefit of low city rates. Several towns, that require street lamps during the Summer only or where the hours per year of operation are not accurately stated, are omitted. Towns where the gas and electric plants are owned by a single corporation in each are not considered. In several cases towns that might fairly be included in the comparison were at first overlooked, and, when discovered, the calculations were too far advanced to warrant their introduction.

The list as selected contains forty-four towns, whose names, populations, prices paid per kilowatt-hour for energy in arc and incandescent street lamps, and nominal commercial rates are as follows: