292564228

LOCAL TAXATION IN COPENHAGEN.

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siderable progress towards completion. Provision for waste water for double the present population is made in the sollerne, the size of the drains being determined, however, by the volume of water with which a sudden rain-storm may fill the drains. This amount is stated to be forfcy times the amount of waste water which needs to be provided for. With the prospect of introducing a water-closet system, the outfall stations have been arranged at suitable distances from the city, all the sewers being intended finally to communicate with an outfall into the Sound on the other side of the island Amager, which shuts off Copenhagen itself from the Sound. At present the outfall at the northem end of the city, beyond the Free Harbour, is used. The department’s accounts for 1897 show that the year began with 26 and ended with 172 water-closets, paying the special rate charged for the privilege of using them. The high rate of charge will restrain any very rapid changes from the old to the new system. There are two rates, 50 and 100 kroner per annum being respectively charged (say ls. and 2s. per week). Of the above-named 172, 33 were at the higher rate, all of which were added in the course of 1897. In spite of the high charges, the new system is spreading fairly fast.* In dealing with house refuse, the course adopted in Copen­ hagen is like that in a number of English municipalities, namely, by contracting for the removal of the refuse by a company. The refuse is deposited on land belonging to the municipality. In view of future difficulties in this respect, experiments were made as long ago as 1888 in the matter of buming the refuse. The collecting carts are required to do their worlc in the early morning before business hours, and the fulfil- ment of the conditions laid down in the contract is secured through police control. It may be added that citizens are not required to turn their houses into private refuse destructors through regulations forbidding the deposit of sundry refuse

* By the end of 1898, the 172 water elosets had increased to 699. A radical reductioxi of the charges is under discussion.