[83]. See the illustrative diagram facing this page.
[84]. Pavements Arranged in Their Approximate Order of Desirability from Different Points of View
| Economy | Economy | Durability | Cleanli- | Noiseless- | Safety |
| in | in | ness | ness | ||
| construction | Repair | ||||
| Macadam | Granite | Granite | Asphalt | Wood | Granite |
| Asphalt | Brick | Wood | Brick | Macadam | Macadam |
| Brick | Wood | Brick | Wood | Brick | Brick |
| Wood | Asphalt | Asphalt | Granite | Asphalt | Wood |
| Granite | Macadam | Macadam | Macadam | Granite | Asphalt |
[85]. A common pretext is to allege that the lowest bidder is not a reliable contractor, or that he underpays his workmen, or that on some previous contract he failed to do a good job. Any such excuse is good enough for city officials who desire to favor their own friends at the public expense. City charters sometimes provide that contracts must be given to the lowest bidder, but a hard-and-fast requirement of this kind may sometimes lead to difficulties.
[86]. The unsightliness of the billboards is not their only objectionable feature. Unless they are firmly anchored in the ground they are often blown down by heavy winds; they afford places of concealment for footpads; and they become the nucleus of a rubbish heap. Land is rented for billboard space which otherwise would be improved and built upon. Billboard space is given over very largely to the advertising of non-essentials. If you will make a survey of say fifty billboards in your own community, you will find that by far the greater portion of the space is given to advertising luxuries. Local merchants use billboard advertising very little. Outside concerns take most of their surface.
[87]. Restrictions may legally be placed upon private property in the interest of the public safety, health, or morals. But people cannot be prohibited from using their own private property in ways which merely offend the public taste.
[88]. The watchmen were very unreliable. In London it was said that most of them spent the greater part of the night in the ale-houses while thieves prowled around in the streets. In order to keep the watchmen on their patrols it became the custom to have them call out the hours as they went along. These watchmen’s cries, “Three o’clock, a misty morning”, etc., were a quaint feature of London life a hundred years ago.
[89]. Sir Robert Peel, who established the first regular police force in England, made himself very unpopular for a time by this step. The members of the new police force, by way of ridicule, were called “peelers” and “bobbies”, and these nicknames persist in England to the present day. They wore (and still wear) blue coats with copper buttons, for which reason the London youngsters also referred to the policeman as “the copper”. In America we have shortened it to “the cop”.
[90]. In Berlin, for example, 98 per cent of the buildings are of brick, stone, concrete, or other fire-resisting material. In the average American city such buildings do not usually form more than 25 per cent of the total.
[91]. Take the income-tax amendment, for example; or the prohibition amendment. Both of them show a popular willingness to place great powers in the hands of the federal government. The people would not have agreed to direct election of senators a hundred years ago; but they did it in 1913.