The corruption in Philadelphia city politics has been notorious for a long time. The operations of the infamous Gas Ring caused the debt of the city, which stood at $20,000,000 in 1860, to reach $70,000,000 in 1881. “Taxation rose in proportion, till in 1881 it amounted to between one-fourth and one-third of the net income from the property on which it was assessed, although that property was rated at nearly its full value. Yet withal, the city was badly paved, badly cleansed, badly supplied with gas (for which a high price was charged) and with water.” (_American Commonwealth_, Vol. II, p. 410.) In a memorandum presented to the Pennsylvania legislature in 1883 by a number of the leading citizens of Philadelphia, they stated that the city’s affairs were in a most deplorable condition. It is there stated to be the worst paved and worst cleaned city in the civilized world; sewage so bad as to endanger health; public buildings badly constructed and then allowed to decay; slovenly management and high taxation. The Gas Ring system was that already described. The political boss originally gained a following of the floating and controllable voters, by which means he got in addition political control of the city’s gas workmen, and through them of the primaries, and thus complete power over city affairs. Elections were controlled by repeating, personations, violence, ballot box tampering and other frauds. It was not until 1887 that the final defeat of this ring was obtained, after tremendous efforts. In that year the loose city charter of 1854 was replaced by the tight-string Bullitt charter, and the old gas ring was succeeded by a new combination of rascals. Under this régime the city has been governed by oligarchies of city contractors. One of the sources of corruption and scandal has been the garbage and street cleaning contracts. There have been scandalous dealings with street franchises. The elections have been fraudulently conducted. Citizens have regarded it as hopeless to vote; out of 416,860 qualified citizens in the spring of 1919 only 241,090 registered as voters. Probably only one-half of the voters actually went to the polls, and those who voted were presumably the most unfit. Why should an intelligent man trouble himself to go through such an empty form as that of voting a mere protest against an overpowering gang of organized freebooters? In 1918 the levying of political assessments on city employees was still in force in Philadelphia, and collections were made from ninety-four per cent of the city employees; the total being $250,000 to $500,000 per year to the Republican party alone. A new city charter has now (1919) been enacted and great reforms are promised, but charter tinkering will never cure the evils created by a politically rotten constituency. Judging the future by the past, there will soon be a new Philadelphia plunder machine which will function till about 1950 when there will be a new revolution and a new ring, and so on.