em and the Battery; and his consent to desired legislation
on such points can very likely be obtained only by favouring some
measure which he thinks will improve the value of his farm, or perhaps
by helping him to debauch the civil service by getting some neighbour
appointed to a position for which he is not qualified. All this is
made worse by the fact that the members of a state government are
generally less governed by a sense of responsibility toward the
citizens of a particular city than even the worst local government
that can be set up in such a city.[12]

[Footnote 1: It is not intended to deny that there may be instances
in which the state government may advantageously participate in the
government of cities. It may be urged that, in the case of great
cities, like New York or Boston, many people who are not residents
either do business in the city or have vast business interests there,
and thus may be as deeply interested in its welfare as any of the
voters. It may also be said that state provisions for city government
do not always work badly. There are many competent judges who approve
of the appointment of police commissioners by the executive of
Massachusetts. There are generally two sides to a question; and to
push a doctrine to extremes is to make oneself a _doctrinaire_
rather than a wise citizen. But experience clearly shows that in all
doubtful cases it is safer to let the balance incline in favour of
local self-government than the other way.]

Moreover, even if legislatures were otherwise competent to manage the
local affairs of cities, they have not time enough, amid the pressure
of other duties, to do justice to such matters. In 1870 the number of
acts passed by the New York legislature was 808. Of these, 212, or
more than one fourth of the whole, related to cities and villages. The
808 acts, when printed, filled about 2,000 octavo pages; and of these
the 212 acts filled more than 1,500 pages. This illustrates what
I said above about the vast quantity of details which have to be
regulated in municipal government. Here we have more than three
fourths of the volume of state-legislation devoted to local affairs;
and it hardly need be added that a great part of these enactments were
worse than worthless because they were made hastily and
without due consideration,--though not always, perhaps, without what
lawyers call _a_ consideration.[13]

[Footnote 13: Nothing could be further from my thought than