In Illinois the habit of special legislation has led the Bureau of Public Efficiency to remark that: “The General Assembly of Illinois might with propriety be added to the list of nineteen local governing bodies of Cook County, for it is continually interfering in an arbitrary manner in matters of local administration.” New Jersey has sinned quite as grievously and its courts have consistently upheld the act even against a provision of the constitution which expressly prohibits the legislature from “regulating the internal affairs of towns and counties.” But lest the full import of these statements should be lost, the following titles of special county bills in a single session of a New York legislature, are cited in evidence: Authorizing conveyance of land on Holland Avenue. Striking out the provision authorizing county treasurer to appoint an attorney. Regulating tax collection procedure. Fixing compensation of unskilled laborers. Correcting 1915 tax roll. Creating a county auditor. Increasing salary of sheriff, etc. Levy of taxes to meet cost of sanitary trunk sewer. Regulating management of penitentiary and workhouse. Creating commissioner of charities. Too often the motive of the legislators has not been to make the county the state’s more obedient servant, but to “bleed” it to the utmost for political purposes. Back of the real difficulties of adjusting the state’s responsibilities to the idea of local control over administrative details, is too evident the suspicion that the political machine needs the county very much “in its business.” For this reason, doubtless, special legislation affecting counties is so often inseparably associated with the forcible opening of the county treasury. New York City in recent years has suffered grievously from mandatory salary increases, imposed in many cases by a party of the opposite political faith from the one in control over the local budget. Thus in 1915 out of a total budget allowance of $7,003,716.82 for county purposes, the sum of $4,858,773.47 or 69.1 per cent. represented mandatory appropriations which could not be increased or diminished by the local budget makers either because the exact amount was fixed by law or because the power of fixation was conferred upon other officers than the appropriating body of the city. Many of the measures in question dealt with the salaries of clerks, stenographers and messengers. Of the total allowance in the same year for personal services (salaries, etc.) of $5,809,481.75, 78 per cent. or $4,576,985.75 was beyond local control. While by far the greater proportion of these sums were just and necessary, the margin of waste which represented one hundred per cent. politics, was, without a doubt, exceedingly large.