in
their work by legislative interference. Nearly all the large salaries
and many of those of the second grade are made mandatory by the
legislature, which has also determined many affairs of a purely
administrative character.

Detroit has made three experiments with municipal ownership. On account
of inadequate and unsatisfactory service by a private company, the city
bought the water-works as long ago as 1836. The works have been twice
moved and enlargements have been made in advance of the needs of the
city. In 1907 there were six engines in the works with a pumping
capacity of 152,000,000 gallons daily. The daily average of water used
during the preceding year was 61,357,000 gallons. The water is pumped
from Lake St Clair and is of exceptional purity. The city began its own
public lighting in April 1895, having a large plant on the river near
the centre of the city. It lights the streets and public buildings, but
makes no provision for commercial business. The lighting is excellent,
and the cost is probably less than could be obtained from a private
company. The street lighting is done partly from pole and arm lights,
but largely from steel towers from 100 ft. to 180 ft. in height, with
strong reflected lights at the top. The city also owns two portable
asphalt plants, and thus makes a saving in the cost of street repairing
and resurfacing. With a view of effecting the reduction of street car
fares to three cents, the state legislature in 1899 passed an act for
purchasing or leasing the street railways of the city, but the Supreme
Court pronounced this act unconstitutional on the ground that, as the
constitution prohibited the state from engaging in a work of internal
improvement, the state could not empower a municipality to do so.
Certain test votes indicated an almost even division on the question of
municipal ownership of the railways.

_History._--Detroit was founded in 1701 by Antoine Laumet de la Mothe
Cadillac (c. 1661-1730), who had pointed out the importance of the place
as a strategic point for determining the control of the fur trade and
the possession of the North-west and had received assistance from the
French government soon after Robert Livingston (1654-1725), the
secretary of the Board of Indian Commissioners in New York, had urged
the English government to establish a fort at the same place. Cadillac
arrived on the 24th of July with about 100 followers. They at once built
a palisade fort about 2