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LOCAL TAXATION IN COPENHAGEN. 27 5s. for lighting purposes. Before this, only gas for gas-motors was sold at reduced rates, and the rate for this was 6|d. greater than the new price. A further reduction of the price of oooking-gas to 3s. 4d. took place in 1890. The consmnption of 1888 was 6 per cent greater than that of 1887, one-third of the increase being at the reduced rate. The consumption of gas for special purposes at the reduced rate has grown steadily and rapidly from 27^ million feet to 618 million feet between 1888 and 1898. Meanwhile a slow falling-off in lighting-gas took place at first, which was checked in 1891, but was renewed on the opening of the electric-light works in 1892, and continued till 1894. After that date the consumption has again slowly increased. The high price checks development in consumption. It is noteworthy and natural that the difference between summer and winter consumption is much greater for lighting than for other purposes. Nearly 8 per cent of the gas produced is consumed in street- lighting by public lamps, for which no payment is credited to Copenhagen’s Gas Department, while a sum averaging £45,472 during the last five years has been annually transferred to the gas accounts for public lighting in this city, of which £32,100 on the average was the price of the gas consumed. The gas estimated to have been consumed in public street-lamps in Copenhagen in the past five years Would have brought in an annual revenue of £20,000 per annum at the price of lighting-gas, or over £13,000 at the price of eooking-gas. To this must be added cost of main- tenance and lighting, amounting to nearly £6,000 per annum. These amounts must be taken into account in any comparison of the profits made by the two concems. The actual average profit paid over in aid of the general expenses of the city has averaged £47,600 in Manchester during the last five years, and in Copenhagen the average was £64,800, against an average of £45,750 in the previous five years. These works are employed to a much greater extent than with us in taxing gas consumers for the general purposes of the city.