In 1899 the State tax paid by the city of New York amounted to $6,275,659, or nearly seventy per cent of the whole; interest on bonds absorbed $11,275,822, leaving $75,813,644 as the actual cost of the current expenses of local government. The gross budget represented a per-capita tax of $24.62 on 3,500,000 inhabitants, of which $19.56 was for local expenses. Of this enormous expenditure more than $35,000,000 is paid out in salaries and wages to 37,000 officers and employees. The Police Department cost $12,000,000 a year, of which $10,700,000 is for salaries. New York has 6,400 policemen. Philadelphia has 2,600, and the annual cost of the department in that city is $3,100,000 a year--much lower in proportion than that of the metropolis. The salaries and wages paid to all regular department employees, including policemen, firemen, street cleaners, and dock builders, are higher than those paid in any other city in the world, and almost without exception the rate has been fixed by act of the State Legislature, and not by the local authorities. In the matter of fixing the pay of officers and employees the city of New York has never known any degree of home rule. The magnitude of the city in wealth and population has always operated against economy in local government. There has existed, apparently, an overwhelming popular sentiment in the city, as well as throughout the State, that such a great municipality should pay the maximum price for everything it might require. If this sentiment had been satisfied by the payment of high salaries and wages it might have been excusable from some points of view; but it was not, and the demand for more money from the public treasury has extended to every class of expenditure. The city of New York is a purchaser in the open market of supplies exceeding in value $5,000,000 a year. This figure applies only to articles purchased without competitive bidding. There is in the charter a provision that all purchases of supplies and labor in excess of $1,000 shall be made by open competitive bidding. This leaves a wide field for fraud and favoritism, and it is an easy matter to evade the spirit and letter of the law relating to competition. If a department requires material and supplies amounting to $10,000, or even $50,000, it is often possible to make the purchases in lots of less than $1,000 from day to day, and thereby obey the letter of the law while permitting the grossest frauds against the city treasury.