chapter 128

, passed in 1851, the election of the mayor passed from the council to the people at large. The first thus elected was the Hon. Charles Wilson. The number of the aldermen was raised to nine and each of the suburban wards received the same rights as the city wards to three representatives. This brought the council up to twenty-seven members. The statute of 1851 only imposed four quarterly sessions of the council, but the mayor had the right, however, to call special meetings. As an instance of the parochial measures then engaging the thoughts of our municipal rulers, we may quote the following relating to the breaking of a monopoly:

“Mayor Wolfred Nelson, in his address to the Council in 1854, after alluding to the pestilence which had visited the city and the poverty which followed, said: ‘The misery in which we have been involved would have been immeasurably greater had not the Council adopted energetic measures having the effect of breaking down a cursed monopoly--that of firewood--by purchasing several hundred cords of firewood and selling it in small lots at cost price; as well as of arresting the most extraordinary practice of converting our greatest thoroughfares, the wharves, into wood yards by speculators and monopolists, who prevented the purchase of wood in small quantities from the boats. The adoption of these measures in one week reduced the price of fuel over one quarter, at a period when it had been boasted that it would be worth ten or twelve dollars a cord during the winter. Instead of this exhorbitant rate the best wood can now be obtained for $6 a cord.’”

In 1859 Charles Glackmeyer was appointed city clerk and remained in office till 1892, when he was succeeded by L.O. David till today.

In 1874 (Victoria 37,