'andilon^forthe I DESS OLD RIVER WHERE I DREAMED KF •xyurujeMSf FOE A DREAMER- | ETJESFOREVKB AKDATOJIFR. DIES IN _-^eX^UBKIS CRCLMJAh ®iWJW EENN6SSB WBlJ®* Mo - v finsl 1 ^xSfe^sJj^iEapa^ 'K^C-^ '.vfe-F Wife ^ ,jA- ^jL«a£gwv^ lgj®£/ JP iff ’ ’^tef • ; ^Vj .‘«; v ' i lp" , /-j.._ jf-JCTi W> hBIv - . ' 'T.^yflM •. «»• 1 «H k wNm/.”' - %a! ssssSWI I » (, \ V « JOHN A LOWELL & CO, BOSTON, REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY^s- President of the Common Council DELIVERED BEFORE THE MEMBERS OF THE COMMON COUNCIL ON THE OCCASION OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT JANUARY 5, 1891 BOSTON PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE COMMON COUNCIL 1891 Uhrah Bass i ROCKWELL CHURCHILL - & CITY PRI NTERS BOSTON 55874 CITY OF BOSTON. In Common Council, April 16, 1891. Ordered , That the Superintendent of Printing be authorized to have printed and bound for the use of the President of the Common Council, fifty copies of the remarks made by the latter in assuming his office on Inauguration Day; the expense attending the same to be charged to the Contingent Fund of the Common Council. Passed in Common Council, April 16, 1891. Approved by the Mayor, April 18, 1891. A true copy. Attest: JOSEPH O’KANE, Clerk of the Common Council. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT. Monday, January 5, being the day appointed by law for the organization of the city government for 1891, the members elect of the Common Council assembled in their chamber in the City Hall at 10 o’clock, A.M. They were called to order by David F. Barry, Esq., the senior member elect, who was now entering upon his twelfth year of service in the city government, and were soon thereafter joined by the members of the Board of Aldermen elect. Hon. Nathan Matthews, Jr., the Mayor elect, accom¬ panied by the retiring Mayor, Hon. THOMAS N. Hart, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth, Hon. Walbridge A. Field, Sheriff JOHN B. O’Brien, and Rev. Leighton Parks, Chaplain of the day, entered the Common Council Chamber under escort of the City Messenger, and took seats in the convention. After prayer by the Chaplain, the oaths of office were administered to the Mayor elect by the Chief PRELIMINARY STATEMENT. 6 Justice, and the Mayor administered the oaths to the members of the Board of Aldermen and Common Council elect. The Mayor then delivered his inaugural address, after which the convention was dissolved. The Common Council thereupon proceeded to the election of a President, and chose David F. Barry, Esq., who had twice before occupied the honorable position. On assuming the chair, President Barry delivered the address set forth in the following pages. REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY, PRESIDENT OF THE COMMON COUNCIL. Gentlemen of the Common Council : I thank you very heartily for selecting me as your presiding officer for the year 1891. It is not for me to tell you, who are assembled here to-day, that it is only occasionally — that it can be but once a year — this honor is bestowed upon any citizen of the city of Boston elected as a member of the Common Council. The position I am in to-day is a very singular one. I am the senior member of this body, it being my twelfth consecutive year of service as a mem¬ ber of the Common Council of the city of Boston; have been elected as president for my third term; and it is the first time in the history of this city REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY. 8 that the senior member of the Council has acted as presiding officer, been a candidate for president, and, having received the nomination, was elected as its president. A motion, which it has al¬ ways been customary to make heretofore, for the first time in the history of Boston has not been made to-day, — that a committee of two be appointed to escort the president to the chair. Being the senior member, I was in the chair when elected president, and of course the motion was not required. Now, gentlemen, I don’t desire to detain you very long. I know you have listened with a good deal of patience to the Mayor’s inaugural address, and for me at this hour to deliver a long speech would not, I feel, be in keeping with the occasion ; but I desire to call the attention of the Council to a few important matters. OUR PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. I would recommend to the Council, to provide at an early day a sum sufficient — which has been REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY. 9 asked for by the Directors of Public Institutions — for a building in which to properly care for the insane people who are located at Austin Farm. By an act of the Legislature, cities and towns are now required to care for their own insane ; so that Boston, which heretofore has had insane patients in State institutions, is required to take them into its own keeping, and to build institutions ample for their accommodation. THE CITY HOSPITAL. I would recommend that the Council pro¬ vide without delay for the enlargement of our City Hospital. To-day we have an institution which is overcrowded. They have had to use the corridors to place cots in for the accom¬ modation of patients, and, as I understand, there are at the present time four hundred and fifteen patients in the hospital. The Legislature gave to the city of Boston permission to take land by the right of eminent domain for City Hos¬ pital purposes, and the Council should, at an REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY. 10 early day, provide a sum sufficient to pur¬ chase the land which the trustees desire. Further, it is very essential the Council should pay some attention to the matter of lighting the hospital by electric lights. I am told by the trustees that the $29,000 required for a plant would be readily saved in five years; and the plant would then be in the hos¬ pital, able to run all the lights which would be required, at the same time doing away with the heavy heat produced from the gas lights in warm weather, and also preventing the burning up and exhaustion of the oxygen in the air, which is the cause of a great deal of trouble to the patients. Every member of the Council knows that the windows cannot be kept open; and such being the case, the use of gas lights, consuming the oxygen in the air, has an un¬ healthy effect upon a sick person, which does not exist in connection with the operation of electric lights. REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY. 11 ANNEX TO CITY HALL. I would recommend that the Council take action in relation to an annex to the City Hall; and it would be well to instruct the City Architect to draw suitable plans, in keeping with the requirements, for an addition to City Hall, so that when the time comes they can be used for the work on the annex, and be carried out in accordance with the proposed design. THE PARK DEPARTMENT. I would ask for, and the Council should in¬ sist upon, the completion of the Charles-bank improvement. From Craigie’s bridge to the Cambridge-street bridge the work is now com¬ plete, and the Park Commissioners should finish the block between Cambridge street and the Union Boat Club House; because I firmly believe, if there are to be any benefits from parks which are to be enjoyed by the poorer classes of people in our city, they will REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY. 12 certainly accrue in a large measure from the work being done along the Charles-river em¬ bankment. There are many poor people in the older portions of our city who are unable to incur the expense necessary to convey their families out to West Roxbury Park in the horse cars. Many of them have three, four, five, and sometimes more, children, and it would be a great deal better for them to use the Charles-river embankment, as they do now, especially of a summer’s evening, when any gentleman of the Council who will visit the Charles-river embankment can see thousands ol our people there. There is no reason why, with the loan ot $2,500,000 asked for by the Park Commissioners, for which we are at the present time about to petition the Legislature, there should not be some definite understand¬ ing that the Park Commissioners will complete the block 01 the Charles-river embankment be¬ tween Cambridge street and the Union boat¬ house. REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY. 13 THE ROXBURY HIGH SCHOOL. The City Council should, as soon as possible, make an ample appropriation to complete the Roxbury High School. When the English High School was first proposed, there was a great deal ot opposition to it. Some people believed the school could not be filled. To-day our large English High School located on Warren avenue is crowded, and additional accommodations are needed. More than one-halt the population ot the city of Boston lives on the other side of the line of Dover street, and I predict that in ten years from to-day the Roxbury High School will not be large enough to accommodate the pupils ready to occupy it. At the present time its masters have secured six buildings on the out¬ side for High School purposes, so the Council will see it is very essential to attend to this matter, and complete the school at as early a day as possible. REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY. 14 MT. HOPE CEMETERY. Last year there was a most unjust and unwise measure passed by the Legislature: to take away from the city ot Boston property that stands the city to-day, on the Auditor’s books, in value a fraction less than $1,000,000. That property consists ol one hundred and six acres or ground. Up to the present time the city of Boston has buried 32,000 paupers in the ceme¬ tery. An act of the Legislature, pushed through by men who were anxious and desirous of getting control of Mt. Hope Cemetery, was passed, which provides that the city of Boston shall transfer all its rights, title, and belongings in the cemetery to the lot owners, in spite of the fact that the city has expended such a large sum of money upon the cemetery, and although we must have burial ground for our pauper dead at the present time and in the future. With one hundred acres going to the lot owners, and six acres reserved for the city’s poor, with 32,000 people buried in six acres to-day, and with a necessity of burying REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY. 15 every year from 1,200 to 1,500 paupers, we would be in this position: that inside of three years the City Council would have to buy additional land in which to bury its dead poor. But the wisdom of last year’s Council, irre¬ spective of party politics, was such that the Council saw lit not to act upon the measure, and it died in committee. I have no doubt the same measure will be considered this year in committee of the present government, but I should recommend the Council to ask that the act be annulled, and that the property still remain in the hands of the City. The Chair awaits the pleasure of the Council. ) ■% % \ V r r V r t \ F t r r ■h' ) A > was BOSTON COLLEGE -^fc. 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