FINANCE. The.maintenance of so many institu tions involves, naturally, a great annual expense, and their municipalization has required the con traction of large loans. The budget of Paris for ]901 amounted to 31-6000.000 francs, of which more than a third, 113,000,000, went for pay ments on the public debt. It should be observed that only about 30,000,000 francs out of these 113.000,000 go to pay off the principal, the rest being interest charges. The next heaviest item is 35.000,000 francs for the police, to which the national Government adds another 10.000,000. The other items of importance are charity, 28, 000.000 francs; education, 27,000,000; streets, 24.000,000. The relative expense for the various departments is about the same from year to year. The total debt of the city is about 2.000,000.000 francs ($400.000,000). To offset these items of expense there are a number of sources of 4ncome which the city derives from the various com panies holding franchises. Paris does not own
its water works, nor the gas and electric plants, and has no municipal transit system. The gas company, in addition to furnishing gas for the illumination of the streets and public buildings at cost price, pays 200,000 francs a year for the right to lay its pipes and a tax of 2 francs for every 100 cubic meters of gas it sells, and di vides with the city all its profits above 131/4 per cent, on its capital stock, which it is not allowed to increase. This makes the total income of the city from the gas company alone equal to 20,000, 000 francs. A similar arrangement with the electric lighting and water companies brings several more millions a year into the city treas ury. Likewise the markets, abattoirs, and cemeteries make their contributions.