V. MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES.

The people who live in cities are far more dependent on monopolies than the resident of the country. The farmer can still, on necessity, return to the custom of primitive times, and supply himself with food, clothing, fuel, and shelter without aid from the outside world; but the city dweller must supply all his wants by purchasing, and is absolutely dependent on his fellow-men for the actual necessaries, as well as the luxuries of life. From the peculiar circumstances of city life, many monopolies arise in production and transportation which occur nowhere else. One of these is the carriage of passengers on street and suburban railways. There is no better instance, perhaps, of the great power which is placed in the hands of railway managers than this matter of suburban passenger traffic. One example must suffice to show this. Let us suppose that the managers of a railway, which has hitherto not been run with a view to the development of suburban traffic, secure control of several choice tracts of land on the line of their road near a growing city, and establish low rates of commutation and frequent and convenient train service. The land which they purchased is sold out in building-lots for many times its cost, and a number of thriving villages become established there, inhabited chiefly by people whose business is in the city and who are obliged to go back and forth on the trains. After a number of years the growth of the towns becomes more sluggish, and the managers find that the commutation traffic is not after all extremely profitable; therefore they lessen their train service and increase the rates of fare. Perhaps they may abolish commutation rates altogether. It is a well known fact that the value of suburban real estate depends almost entirely on the convenience and cheapness of access to the city. By the removal and forced sale, which