8. What are the evidences of a sound financial condition in a city? 9. Is the financial condition of your city sound? 10. When debts are incurred, are provisions made at the same time for meeting them when due? 11. What are "sinking funds"? 12. What wants has a city that a town is free from? 13. Describe your system of public water works, making an analysis of important points that may be presented. 14. Do the same for your park system or any other system that involves a long time for its completion as well as a great outlay. 15. Are the principles of civil service reform recognized in your city? If so, to what extent? Do they need to be extended further? 16. Describe the parties that contended for the supremacy in your last city election and tell what questions were at issue between them. 17. What great corporations exact an influence in your city affairs? Is such influence bad because it is great? What is a possible danger from such influence? 18. In view of the vast number and range of city interests, what is the most that the average citizen can reasonably be asked to know and to do about them? What things is it indispensable for him to know and to do is he is to contribute to good government? BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. Section 1. DIRECT AND INDIRECT GOVERNMENT.--The transition from direct to indirect government, as illustrated in the gradual development of a township into a city, may be profitably studied in Quincy's _Municipal History of Boston_, Boston, 1852; and in Winsor's _Memorial History of Boston_, vol. iii. pp. 189-302, Boston, 1881. Section 2. ORIGIN OF ENGLISH BOROUGHS AND CITIES.--See Loftie's _History of London_, 2 vols., London, 1883; Toulmin Smith's _English Gilds_, with Introduction by Lujo Brentano, London, 1870; and the histories of the English Constitution, especially those of Gneist, Stubbs, Taswell-Langmead, and Hannis Taylor. Section 3. GOVERNMENT OF CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES.--_J.H.U. Studies_, III., xi.-xii., J.A. Porter, _The City of Washington_; IV., iv., W.P. Holcomb, _Pennsylvania Boroughs_; IV., x., C.H. Lovermore, _Town and City Government of New Haven_; V., i.-ii., Allinson and Penrose, _City Government of Philadelphia_; V., iii., J.M. Bugbee, _The City Government of Boston_; V., iv., M.S. Snow, _The City Government of St. Louis_; VII., ii.-iii., B. Moses, _Establishment of Municipal Government in San Francisco_; VII., iv., W.W. Howe, _Municipal History of New Orleans_; also _Supplementary Notes_, No. 4, Seth Low, _The Problem of City Government_ (compare No. 1, Albert Shaw, _Municipal Government in England_.) See, also, the supplementary volumes published at Baltimore,--Levermore's _Republic of New Haven_, 1886, Allinson and Penrose's _Philadelphia_, 1681-1887: _a History of Municipal Development_, 1887. CHAPTER VI. THE STATE. Section 1. _The Colonial Governments._