Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 236, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 October 1910 — HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES

Greater New York’s Increased Needs

NEW YORK.—That the New York city government has, in some ways at least, kept pace with the city’s gjrowth as shown in the census returns is manifest from a budget study compiled by the city statisticians. The census returns show an increase in the population of 38.7 per cent. In the same ten-year period the city budget has grown from $90,778,972 to $163,030,270 —an increase of over 74 per pent. The figures estimated for the expenditure of the actual city, as apart from the county, were for 1900 $79,201,763, and for 1910 $158,775,145, or 94 per cent increase. The increased cost in the city government is partly accounted for, according to the budget officials, by the widened scope of municipal enterprise. For example, ten years ago Jhe domestic relations courts in Manhattan and Brooklyn, the special schools for defective children or tuberculosis patients and the establishment of playgrounds were entirely outside the general conception of what the city government should do. The expense of maintaining the city's police force has increased more than a third in the decade. The board of education now requires twice as much as in 1900—528,500,000, instead

of $14,600,000. The street-cleaning department spends 50 per cent mor 57,500,000, instead of $5,000,000. The health department’s appropriation has grown 125 per cent —from $1,050,000 to $2,750,000. The fire department costs SO per cent more—sß,lso,ooo, in place of $4,850,000 •" ; 1 ... Figures for church membership in Greater New York compiled by local organizations show that the number of church members for the five borthe new population figures. In 1900 oughs is 1,310,421, or 37.2 per cent of there were 1,233,677 members of Christian churches. This was 35.9 per cent of the population. The figures seem to show that the growth in church membership is 1.3 per cent ahead of the population growth. This growth, it is estimated, is divided about evenly between Protestants and Roman Catholics. At present it is calculated that there are 440,783 Protestants to 869,648 Roman Catholics. A remarkable fact in the religious work of the city has been the growth of the Lutheran church, its’ additional churches since 1855 having been 22 per cent of those built in Greater New York. Next to it comes the Protestant Episcopal church, which has built ninety-three churches to the Lutherans’ 113. There are at least 66 separate Christian bodies at work in New York, of which the four which obtain the largest tax exemptions on account of property are the Roman Catholic, the Protestant Episcopal, the Presbyterian and the Jewish.