Interest on the public debt, $915,987 Expenses of law courts, 118,906 Expenses of jail, magistrates, &c., . . 103,587 Public schools (less amount paid by State), 594,089 Expenses of poor, 210,739 Police department, 702,882 Street-cleaning department, 263,934 Fire department, 214,226 Street lighting, 221,203 Parks, &c., 52,080 Salaries, 72,624 City council, 52,925 [Footnote 1: Finance Statistics of the American Commonwealths: E.E. Seligman. Publications of Am. Statistical Asso., Dec., 1889.] [Footnote 2: R.T. Ely, _Taxation in Am. States and Cities_.] Nearly all of our State and local governments, as well as the national government, have contracted large public debts, the interest payments upon which constitute one of the chief items in their lists of expenditures. The present debt of the Federal Government is largely the result of the enormous expenditures occasioned by the Civil War. In 1865, August 31, it reached its highest point $2,381,530,294, with an annual interest charge of $150,977,697. Since then it has been steadily reduced until in 1889 the total interest-bearing debt was but $829,853,990, with an annual interest charge of $33,752,354. The principal of the national debt is mainly in the form of interest-bearing bonds held by the National banks and private individuals. These bonds are of various denominations and are promises of the government to pay the sums named on their face, at the expiration of a certain period. The bonds at present unpaid, and as such constituting the major portion of our national debt, are principally of two kinds; those bearing four and one-half per cent, annual interest and falling due in 1891, and those bearing four per cent, interest and falling due in 1907. The debts of most of the States were contracted by ill-advised and untimely systems of internal improvements. The total state indebtedness June I, 1890, as shown by the Eleventh Census, was $238,396,590, a decrease of slightly over $58,000,000 in ten years. The tendency now seems to be for States to withdraw from the money market as borrowers, and for the county and city governments to take their place. The local debts are very large, and have shown a marked increase during the last twenty years. They have been for the most part incurred in improvements and construction of public works, which have in most instances well repaid the debts incurred. CHAPTER XVIII. Money.[1]