The Council was authorized to establish and regulate markets, to alter or improve streets, alleys, sidewalks and bridges, and keep the same in order; to provide for the lighting of streets, against accidents by fire; to establish fire companies, purchase engines, and to provide wells or cisterns for supplying water. It was authorized to prevent and punish, by reasonable fines, the practice of discharging fire-arms and running horses in the town; to license and regulate shows and other exhibitions, and tax them in such manner as may be expedient and lawful; to lay off public grounds and provide for and take care of public buildings, grounds and cemeteries; to conduct and distribute water into and through the town; to adopt rules for its own government and the transaction of its business. It was also to define the powers, prescribe the duties and fix the term of service and compensation of its own appointees, necessary for conducting the affairs of the town, not otherwise provided; to fix the salary of the Mayor and all other officers, but no compensation was to be allowed to any member of the Council unless he should act as clerk of the body. The Council was to make all such by-laws and regulations as it might deem necessary, consistent with the constitution and laws of the State, for the good government of the town, and to enforce the same by reasonable fines and penalties, not exceeding for any one offence the sum of ten dollars. The Council was authorized to provide a revenue for the town and appropriate the same, and for that purpose it was made the duty of the Commissioner of the Revenue to make an annual assessment of taxable persons and property within the town, such as should be taxable under the revenue laws of the State, including dogs and other animals running at large. This was the release of the liberty-loving people of Fredericksburg from military bondage and misrule, signed, sealed and delivered, for which they rejoiced as did the captive Israelite of old as he again returned from bondage to his beloved native land. CITIZENS AGAIN IN CONTROL. _The Ante Bellum Debt of the Town._ Prior to the war the Council, by direction of the people, given through the ballot, had made large appropriations to public improvements, with a view of building up the town by retaining the trade of the surrounding country, which was threatened by other cities, and by drawing trade from other sections of the country that found markets elsewhere. From these improvements the hopes of the town were not realized. Some of them remained in an unfinished condition, while others had been rendered worthless by new lines of railroad that had diverted their business and rendered them worthless; yet, the debt owed by the town, by reason of these appropriations and other expenditures, amounted to $244,521.48.[46] All this debt was hanging over the desolated town and not a dollar's worth of property to show for it.