the Building Department, or, if you object to the Building Department, the Fire Prevention Bureau or some other other than the Tenement-House proper - take jurisdiction over these higher grade of flats. This is a question that has troubled the property owners in New York a long while. You may not know it, Mr. Commissioner, but there has been a great deal of worry in regard to this distinction. They feel that in the high-grade residences or apartments they should not be molested with the general tactics that are ample for the purposes of inspection, good, bad or otherwise, in so far as the tenement-house property is concerned. I am trying to get from Mr. Veiller a way to see if there cannot be some way to make this distinction.

Mr. Elkus: We hardly have anything to do with that subject; we have about twenty people here waiting to be heard.

Mr. SCHWAB: I am ready to cease now. I only want to throw that out for what it is worth, but I would say I would make that recommendation. If you gentlemen would go at that it might be a very fortunate thing in the interest of property owners who feel very keenly on that. It may not be your opinion that that is so, but it is so.

Commissioner GOMPERS: The pertinency of the matter you mention is not quite evident, but the Commission is endeavoring to ascertain today the opinion of gentlemen qualified to answer as to the administration of existing law and to simplify it so as to avoid

Mr. SCHWAB: I understand that, Commissioner, and that is the reason why it may not be pertinent to the issue. I thought it might be a thing that the Commission ought to know, and if there are any recommendations it might be taken up for consideration.

Mr. LAURENCE M. D. McGUIRE (President Real Estate Board of New York): In your studies of the general conditions, both in this city and the other cities, have you ever made up any data as to the cost of inspection?

Mr. VEILLER: I have not.

Mr. MCGUIRE: You have never gone into that?

Mr. VEILLER: You mean the cost of inspection to the city on a unit of cost basis?

Mr. MCGUIRE: Also per building or per capita.

Mr. VEILLER: I have never done it; I think it would be very valuable.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Would you think, Mr. Veiller, that the general cost to the City of New York of inspection, allowing, of course, that you have never made data as to the cost, would you say it was being done economically?

Mr. VEILLER: That is a pretty sweeping question.

Mr. MCGUIRE: You say, in your opinion, Mr. Marks' testimony this morning and his idea of the situation was not practicable; I didn't gather from what you said why it isn't practicable.

Mr. VEILLER: I tried to make plain that the head of a department, in enforcing the law, who is going into court, must rely upon the report of his own employee whom he has control of. Otherwise he cannot be responsible.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Then the only difficulty would be in the matter of prosecution, where the work is not done; is that the only difficulty?

Mr. VEILLER: I would distinguish between prosecution and enforcement.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Sometimes you have a prosecution in force? Mr. VEILLER:

Sometimes.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Then it really is prosecution?

Mr. VEILLER: In some departments 90 per cent. of enforcements is not prosecution, but is sometimes bluff. Very often there is a prosecution; so I would distinguish between the two. I would not say that was the only difficulty, but a large part of the difficulty.

Mr. MCGUIRE: You haven't had a single instance brought to your notice of absolute conflict as between departments, have you?

Mr. VEILLER: I haven't had a specific case brought, but I have no doubt that some exist.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Would you say, Mr. Veiller, that in a tenement-house where there is one tenant taking in sewing - allowing always it is a cleanly premises, etc.- would you say that house ought to be under the jurisdiction of the State Labor Department?

Mr. VEILLER: Let me see if I get your question right; assume a tenement-house with twelve families - you mean a dress-making establishment?

Mr. MCGUIRE: No; a tenement-house where they bring in trousers and so on.

Mr. VEILLER: No; I think that should not be allowed at all. It should be abolished.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Without regard to the premises and the way they are maintained?

Mr. VEILLER: Absolutely; there should be no factories in tenement-houses.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Following that same line, in the store of a tenement-house where a tailor on the ground floor is mainly pressing clothes and doing general repair work, that should be prohibited?

Mr. VEILLER: No; I think the definition of factory at the present time is very unfair; I think it should differentiate between the larger and the smaller in the industry.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Do you think if Mr. Marks, or some other gentleman who has had practical rather than theoretical experience, could show you that the general inspection in the City of New York could be done more efficiently at 50 per cent. of what is now being paid, do you think it would be possible –

Mr. VEILLER: Under existing laws and methods of municipal organizations, no.

Mr. MCGUIRE: I do not say under existing laws, but reforming the law at 50 per cent.

Mr. VEILLER: If you will cut the red tape and the civil service laws and the difficulty of getting rid of employees, certainly you can do it.

Mr. MCGUIRE:

Am I fair to deduct from that that we are

paying 50 per cent. more than is necessary 7 ?

Mr. VEILLER: I think you are in a great many other directions.

Mr. MCGUIRE: And in this particular direction you are willing to agree with me that we are.

Mr. VEILLER: With that qualification.

Mr. ELKUS: That is, if we could get rid of the Civil Service Law?

Mr. VEILLER: If we could get rid of the Civil Service Law and other matters that interfere with the efficiency of the head of a department.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Now, coming back to the remarks of Mr. Marks, has it ever come to your mind that we might have a department in the State say a public welfare department, or whatever you care to call it and amalgamate all the different departments and produce more efficiency and better results at a less price?

Mr. VEILLER: I should say it had often occurred to me that you could have a welfare department amalgamating all these departments and others but I think you would have less efficiency. It is a question of the size of the job and in a city of five million pcople with all the functions involved in the various departments you have to divide in order to get results. Now just one illustration. You won't get high grade men to take the headship of subordinate bureaus in a department when you would get a high grade man to take the headship of a department. That is simply one illustration.

Mr. MCGUIRE: But isn't it true, in the same ratio, a few years ago, not very many years ago, it was not considered possible to sell a great variation of goods and merchandise under one roof?

Mr. VEILLER: Yes, sir.

Mr. MCGUIRE: But it is being done now, isn't it?

Mr. VEILLER: Yes sir, many things years ago called impossible are being done now.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Hasn't civilization advanced and haven't we taken on wholesale jobs?

The

Mr. VEILLER: Yes we are always taking on wholesale jobs. Public service is not comparable with private business. private business man is buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest. I do not think the analogy holds.

Mr. MCGUIRE: Any objection to the city going into that same thing; doing the same thing if it will make for saving?

Mr. VEILLER: No objection but there is nothing to compete with.

Mr. MCGUIRE: There seems to be a good deal of competition between the departments just now for jurisdiction.

Mr. VEILLER: I haven't noticed any. If you have some specific cases it would be interesting. I have listened here all day.

Mr. MCGUIRE: I will give you a specific case; a tenement house in which there are 24 tenants; two of those tenants are taking in sewing; the Labor Department enters that house and orders every room and all of the rooms throughout the entire house repainted; three of the apartments are vacant and have been vacant a month. Those three apartments had been done when the tenants vacated, had just been painted. It was satisfactory to the Tenement House Department and two days previously had got a clean bill of health.

Mr. VEILLER: I think that is conflicting and ought to be stopped absolutely.

Mr. MCGUIRE: There is no need of encumbering this record and going into the conflict between the Labor Department and the