Honest and intelligent administration in every department of the city government would reduce expenditures, but the extent of the reduction that might be made would depend largely upon the proper amendment of certain laws, and to an even greater extent upon the development of a thoroughly informed public sentiment that would sustain retrenchment and economy. The expenses of the city are far greater than they should be, but it is going to be a difficult matter to make even an appreciable beginning in economy so long as the State Legislature is permitted to exercise practically unlimited power to regulate the financial affairs of the municipality. Persons and corporations, be they honest or corrupt, when they seek to obtain money from the city treasury for any purpose, are going to proceed along the line of least resistance, and the smooth and open way has long been the Legislature at Albany. Every session of that body adds something to the expenses of the city, and it is a short and dull one that does not add many thousands of dollars to the burden of the New York taxpayers.
The revenues of the municipality are so small in comparison with what they should be that it is a difficult matter to find any excuse for the theory of government that existed in the days when perpetual franchises were given away. It is small consolation that the policy of municipal ownership is at last to prevail after so much of the public property has passed into the possession of private corporations. If all the outstanding franchises that were the property of the people had been sold on short terms for percentages even as large as have been fixed in recent cases, the city to-day would drive from that source an annual revenue of more than $5,000,000, instead of the paltry $300,000 now collected.
The mistakes of the past, however, are beyond undoing, and the taxpayers must look to the future for relief from the burdens they bear. They are paying now $15,000,000 a year for the sentiment that demanded a city great in all save honesty and political wisdom. Consolidation in fact as well as sentiment must result to prove the material advantage of the arrangement. Public opinion and politicians must realize sooner or later that income and expenses are to be adjusted the one to the other upon sound and enduring principles of business, honesty, and intelligence. There must be a union of public and political interests. Every section of the great city must be brought into close touch with every other section by cheap and rapid transit.
The possibilities of the future are greater than the dreams of to-day, but new policies and new methods must and will prevail. The development of Greater New York must not be hampered by a financial system antiquated and imperfect. The city should have power to develop its material resources into revenue-yielding improvements, and then, with honest and intelligent government, the burden of taxation will be reduced to a minimum, and the ideal of the grandest municipality in the world will have been achieved.
A BUBBLE-BLOWING INSECT.
By Prof. E. S. MORSE.
Many years ago, while preparing an elementary book on zoölogy, I had occasion to make a drawing of the little insect which is found on grass and other plants immersed in flecks of froth. This substance is commonly known as frog spittle or cuckoo spit, and, being found in the spring, is known in France as “spring froth.”
Works on entomology gave the general statement that this insect emitted the frothy mass from its body. Curious to ascertain what peculiar gas-secreting apparatus was contained within its anatomy, I dissected a number of specimens, without finding a trace of any structure that could produce from within the body a single bubble of air. On the contrary, I found that the little insect emitted a clear, somewhat viscid fluid, and by means of appendages at the extreme tip of its tail secured a moiety of air by grasping it, so to speak, and then instantly releasing it as a bubble in the fluid it had secreted. At the time of this observation—twenty-five years ago—I supposed that entomologists were familiar with this fact, but, on the appearance of my little book, I received a letter from the late Dr. Hermann Hagen, the distinguished entomologist, stating that he had ransacked his library and failed to find any reference of the nature of my statement. Doubtless the whole history of this insect has since been published, but a somewhat superficial survey of the literature has failed to reveal any reference to the matter. In this connection it is interesting to observe how often the more easily accessible facts of Nature escape the special student. The history of science is replete with such instances. One can hardly take up any subject connected with the life history of animals without finding lacunæ which ought to have been filled long ago. The facts in regard to the ossification of the hyoid bones in man is a case in point. The persistence of these erroneous concepts or half-truths comes about by the acceptance at the outset of some fairly trustworthy account by an authority on the subject, and ever after the statements are copied without a doubt being expressed as to their accuracy.
If we look over the literature of the subject under discussion, we find that in nearly every case the statement in regard to the spit-insect conveys the idea that the creature secretes the froth in which it is immersed. Beginning with De Geer in the last century, we quote as follows: “One may see coming out of the hinder part of its body a little ball of liquid, which it causes to slip along, bending it under its body. Beginning again the same movements, it is not long in producing a second globule of liquid, filled with air like the first, which it places side by side with and close to the preceding one, and continues the same operation as long as there remains any sap in its body.” Kirby and Spence, in their Entomology, describe “the white froth often observed on rose bushes and other shrubs and plants, called by the vulgar ‘frog spittle,’ but which if examined will be found to envelop the larva of a small hemipterous larva (Aphrophora spumaria), from whose anus it exudes.” In Westwood’s Insects we find the following statement: “One of the best-known insects in the family is the Aphrophora spumaria, a species of small size which frequents garden plants, the larva and pupa investing themselves with a frothy excrementitious secretion which has given rise to various fancies. A species of Aphrophora is also found in great quantities upon trees in Madagascar, the larva of which has the power of emitting a considerable quantity of clear water, especially in the middle of the day, when the heat is greatest.” Here the statement is definitely made that the froth is excrementitious, and the Madagascar insect is shown to be different from Aphrophora in that it exudes a clear water. In Dr. Harris’s Treatise on some of the Insects Injurious to Vegetation, of Massachusetts, we find a most definite statement as to the origin and nature of this froth. He says: “Here may be arranged the singular insects, called frog hoppers (Cercopididæ), which pass their whole lives on plants, on the stems of which their eggs are laid in the autumn. The following summer they are hatched, and the young immediately perforate the bark with their beaks and begin to imbibe the sap. They take in such quantities of this that it oozes out of their bodies continually in the form of little bubbles, which soon completely cover up the insects.” In Dr. Packard’s admirable Guide to the Study of Insects the statement is made that “Helochara and Aphrophora, while in the larva state, suck the sap of grasses and emit a great quantity of froth, or in some cases a clear liquid, which in the former case envelops the body and thus conceals it from sight. It is then vulgarly called ‘toad’s spittle.’”