Excerpt from Glasgow to-Day

The home of the Corporation - the Municipal Build ings - is one of the city's wonders. Erected some 20 years ago, at a cost of three-quarters of a million sterling, it accommodates nearly all the principal departments, and also comprises the Civic Banqueting Hall and several salons.

What, then, does the Municipality, thus equipped, do for the citizens? It has been credited with caring for them from the cradle to the grave. Verily, there is more than a grain of truth in the statement, for an energetic Health Department has decreed that within 36 hours of the birth of an infant notification must be sent to headquarters so that, if necessary, a qualified visitor? May render assistance. Corporation dairies may then be resorted to for sustenance, and right on from infancy not only the necessaries but the luxuries, of life are provided by a beneficent Corporation. When the last sad rites are performed the civic burial grounds may be the final scene. Indeed, the municipal activities of Glasgow are as varied as they are numerous, for with a prescience worthy of the best statesmanship her pioneers set out to provide for the wants of the Greater Glasgow that is destined to be. Thus, while the municipal boundaries are meantime such as to enrich the suburban areas at the expense of the mother city, 'the corporate enterprises of Glasgow are the stimulating, as they were largely the creative power, of a multiplicity of flourishing communities all round the circumference. To each of these Glasgow affords a cheap and abundant water supply, an um rivalled gas department, and a tramway service that is the envy of the world. It is estimated that these each supply the needs of I, people, or nearly half a million persons outside the municipal area. These departments, however, are but a small part of the civic undertakings of the Second City. The list includes all that relates to public health, as well as to cleansing and sewerage, baths and washh'ouses, together with city improvement and model lodging-houses, electricity, markets, police, fire brigade and lighting, art galleries and museums, libraries, and public parks, etc. - a gigantic undertaking, indeed, giving employment to about persons, and an asset to the community of the amazing total of something like 22 millions sterling. With regard to the outstanding departments - tramways, gas, electricity, and fire brigade - these are dealt with later in detail.

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