“Any urban authority may contract with any person for the supply of gas or other means of lighting the streets, markets, and public buildings in their district, and may provide such lamps, lamp-posts and other materials and apparatus as they may think necessary for lighting the same. . . .” (38 and 39 Vic. c. 55, s. 161.) I do not propose to entertain the question of lighting where the gas works are the property of the corporation, but only to give information that may be of use where a contract has to be entered into between the corporation and a company. These contracts are based nearly always upon the length of time at which the public lamps are to be kept lighted, and may be summarised as follows: (1.) The public lamps are lighted from sunset to sunrise every night throughout the year; this averages 12 hours per diem, or about 4000 hours per annum. (2.) The public lamps are not lighted on the nights of full moon, nor for two or three nights before and after this period; the rest of the year they are lighted at sunset. (3.) Similar to the preceding, except that the public lamps are not lighted during the five nights of full moon, the night after they are lighted for one hour and extinguished on the rising of the moon; this lighting increases from night to night about three quarters of an hour until the moon has entirely disappeared, when the lamps are lighted during the whole of the night for five consecutive nights. Then again on the appearance of the new moon the lamps are extinguished the first night for about an hour that the moon is visible, and this extension increases nightly about three quarters of an hour according as the moon appears until the period of full moon, the intention being to profit by every hour of the moon’s light. By this arrangement the lighting is about 2000 hours per annum, instead of 4000 hours, when it is continued throughout the night during the whole of the year. (4.) Sometimes, in addition to the foregoing, the lamps are not lighted at all during the summer months. (5.) Occasionally the public lamps are extinguished at midnight all the year round, if not for the whole, for some portions of the district, it being assumed that all respectable citizens being in bed, no light is required. (6.) In some cases every other lamp only is lighted in the summer months, and many other similar variations for the sake of economy may be practised. (7.) The public lamps are sometimes supplied by gas through meters, which is then paid for at so much per 1000 cubic feet consumed. Of all the above methods the first is undoubtedly the most satisfactory to the inhabitants, the urban authority, their officers, and the gas company; it is the least likely to introduce disputes, and although something may be saved by adopting the more parsimonious methods enumerated, it is found in practice that the first is the best.