The Daily Crescent

Correspondence of the Crescent.
New York, Dec. 19th, 1848.
Eds. Crescent: Our weather is yet as bland as that of May. The Oldest Inhabitant says, he never saw any thing like it in December. If the cholera were really in earnest, it might be doing a large business in the city, but it happily, so far, confines itself to the Quarantine ground. Five new cases and two deaths are reported of its yesterday's doings, by the Health Officer—all passengers of the ship New York. Discharges, or cures, are not reported.
The stock market begins to manifest symptoms of the California fever—the fancy descriptions showing a disposition to activity that bodes eventual delirium. Harlem R. R. yesterday sold for 58½, and Canton at 38. Six per cent. Treasury Notes 108½, and U. S. Sixes, 1868, 108½; Coupons of do. for 1862, are worth 107.
The City Comptroller last night sent in his budget to the Common Council, calling for appropriations for the coming year to the amount of $3,016,664, requiring a levy of taxes over that of 1848 of $295,214. Of this three millions, one twelfth, or two hundred and fifty thousand, go to the support of the common schools in the city. The police department costs $479,000, and the State tax $127,000. The expenses proper of the City Government, including lamps and gas, are $1,636,000.
The Common Council, in both branches, adopted a report in favor of paying $500 to the widow of Mr. Alexander S. Forbes, who died on his way from Mexico, where he had been sent to bring home the remains of Capt. Pearson and other officers of the New York Volunteers.
The respective City Inspectors of New York and Brooklyn, report for the last week 250 deaths for this city, and 26 for Brooklyn. From such a report some opinion may be formed as to the comparative salubrity of the rival cities. This city loses weekly, by death, one in every eighteen hundred, while the loss of Brooklyn is only one in three thousand. The Yorkers are anxious, of course, to lengthen the average of their lives, and hence urge annexation on the Brooklynites, who, in return, view with no favor the probability of supplying a coffin for every eighteen hundred inhabitants. New York must get decent and keep her streets clean, before Brooklyn can listen to her proposals.
The city of Brooklyn has been peculiarly unfortunate in time past in the matter of contract. About 1835 the Common Council made a contract with a builder to superintend the erection of a magnificent City Hall, a much finer building altogether than the Capitol at Washington City. Well, the cellars were dug, the foundations laid, and about three or four layers of the marble blocks of which the edifice was to be composed, were laid, when one fine morning the Corporation found itself unable to furnish the means to go on. The building was stopped and the workmen discharged. Not so, however, with the Superintendent. When the proper officer informed that gentleman that the Corporation did not require his further services, he only shrugged his shoulders and walked off. On pay-day, however, he returned with his bill, as usual, and made out for the full amount per contract, seven dollars per day. Its payment was contested and decided in favor of the Superintendent. So month after month, and year after year, the City Hall lay in statu quo and Stephen Haynes brought in his bill and pocketed his cash. The contract had conditioned that the said Haynes should receive seven dollars per day until the City Hall should be finished. Well, at last, and but a few months ago, the Corporation bought the man off with a bonus of two or three thousand dollars, and built a very pretty—a fine City Hall.
About the same time of 1835, or perhaps earlier, the Corporation entered into a contract with a dozen or so of speculators for a supply of gas to the city lamps—these speculators being then busied in making arrangements for gas buildings, pipes, etc., and in collecting subscriptions to stock for enumerated purposes. Eighteen hundred and thirty-six came, and the gas-house, and pipes, and stock, and stockholders, found themselves used up very essentially; and the matter died away until recently, when the contract was renewed and again broken. A responsible man at the head of a responsible company, has now proposed to light the city with coal gas for $2 per 1000 feet, or with rosin gas for $3 50, when this old gas company exclaim that their rights are invaded by any arrangement with new parties. They will not light the city, nor will they permit others to do it, and I am told that the law supports them. Brooklyn could now make a contract for lighting twenty-one miles of streets for less than the old company claim for lighting nine miles.
INDICATOR.