Uncontrolled financial speculation, aided by the stringent clauses of the Electric Lighting Act of 1882, have been a great deterrent to the extension of old or the introduction of new schemes for the supply of electricity to the public in the same manner as gas. The President of the Board of Trade, replying to a question in the House of Commons, said that, “since the passing of the Electric Lighting Act of 1882, fifty-nine provisional orders and five licences had been granted to companies, and fifteen provisional orders and two licences to local authorities. He was not aware that, in any single case where these powers had been obtained, they had been exercised.” Up to the present time no company supplying electricity has been under the necessity of applying for compulsory powers, and has either obtained permission from the local authorities to take up the streets, or has carried the electric mains over the houses, and, regardless of the question of overhead wires, has depended on wayleaves granted by the too-confiding householder, who has no idea that his roof is supporting a cable weighing 1¾ tons to the mile. An amendment of the Act of 1882 has passed both Houses without hindrance, and has received the Royal assent. It provides that in the case of Provisional Orders the period after which the undertaking may be bought up by the Local Authority shall be extended from twenty-one to forty-two years, and that portion of the previous Act which referred to the compulsory purchase of the undertaking by a local authority at the end of the term has been altered, and more favourable terms given to the electric companies. On the Continent, and in the United States, where each city may be said to legislate for itself in matters relating to the general welfare of its citizens, the electric lighting industry is in a very different position, and central-stations are either established or about to be started in every important town. There were, in 1887, 121 Edison central-stations alone, supplying over 323,000 incandescent lamps, and paying dividends from 6 to 14 per cent. The Westinghouse Company, who use a transformer system which is a modification of the Goulard and Gibbs, have a hundred stations, maintaining 191,000 lamps, although the first Westinghouse plant was put down only three years ago. The progress in the United States is so rapid, and there are so many successful applications of central-station lighting, that the subject becomes too large to be even summarised, so that it is proposed to treat in the following pages with some of the principal installations on the Continent and at home.