y of the homeless swelled to
twelve thousand nightly lodgers in a single precinct, and forty
thousand children were forced to toil for scanty bread.

Prostitution, legalized in the purchase of besmirched foreign titles
and forced upon the attention of youth in the corrupting annals of the
daily press, was flaunted publicly as never before. Scientists
competed for the infamous distinction of inventing appliances for
murder by electricity, while in the domain of politics the sale of
votes in the closing years of the decade was more notorious than at
any period of the city's history. In a society in which all things are
commodities to be had for money, the labor power of stalwart men and
tiny children, the innocence of delicately cherished girlhood, the
marriage tie, the virtue of the servant, and the manhood of the
statesman, it is eminently fitting that the record of progress should
be kept officially in dollars and cents.

This is done in all our communities in the report of the disbursing
officer who is known in New York City under the title of the
Comptroller. His report shows what money the city spends, the sources
from which it is derived, and the purposes for which it is used. The
following data taken from statement "G" of his report for '89, may be
readily verified, and will prove, upon examination of the original, to
be but few among many conspicuous indications of retrogression.

Expressed in dollars and cents, then, the growth of pauperism and
crime was such in the decade which began with 1880, that we now spend
more than a million each year in excess of the sum spent then for the
same purposes. If we have grown in population so rapidly that the
percentages remain unchanged, the fact cannot be ascertained for want
of data. Nor is it important. The weighty fact is this, that pauperism
and crime have gained upon us. Riches are greater and poverty is
greater.

The moral and social retrogression indicated in this item of the
Comptroller's report is thrown into bold relief by another item, the
expenditures for schools. While the paupers and criminals have grown
upon us by an annual expenditure of more than a million in excess of
the sum needed in 1879, the school children's share of the public
funds has grown by less than a million in excess of the requirements
of 1879.

More shameful still is this retrogression when the item of police
expenditure is considered, for this exceeds outright the appropriation
for