urselves at present with this investigation of its
character, reserving its proper treatment for later consideration.

V.

MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES.

The people who live in cities are far more dependent on monopolies than
the resident of the country. The farmer can still, on necessity, return
to the custom of primitive times, and supply himself with food,
clothing, fuel, and shelter without aid from the outside world; but the
city dweller must supply all his wants by purchasing, and is absolutely
dependent on his fellow-men for the actual necessaries, as well as the
luxuries of life. From the peculiar circumstances of city life, many
monopolies arise in production and transportation which occur nowhere
else. One of these is the carriage of passengers on street and suburban
railways. There is no better instance, perhaps, of the great power which
is placed in the hands of railway managers than this matter of suburban
passenger traffic. One example must suffice to show this. Let us suppose
that the managers of a railway, which has hitherto not been run with a
view to the development of suburban traffic, secure control of several
choice tracts of land on the line of their road near a growing city, and
establish low rates of commutation and frequent and convenient train
service. The land which they purchased is sold out in building-lots for
many times its cost, and a number of thriving villages become
established there, inhabited chiefly by people whose business is in the
city and who are obliged to go back and forth on the trains. After a
number of years the growth of the towns becomes more sluggish, and the
managers find that the commutation traffic is not after all extremely
profitable; therefore they lessen their train service and increase the
rates of fare. Perhaps they may abolish commutation rates altogether. It
is a well known fact that the value of suburban real estate depends
almost entirely on the convenience and cheapness of access to the city.
By the removal and forced sale, which many of these people will be
obliged to make, it may easily happen that they may lose their entire
property. It is not stated that such flagrant cases of autocracy on the
part of railway managers are common. Indeed, it is a high compliment to
the uprightness and probity of these men that such occurrences are so
infrequent, and that the temptation, so constantly presented, of
enriching one's self at the expense of the owners of th