revenue should be derived. But to the poor, and those who would be content to receive it from the hydrants at the corners and on the sidewalks, it should be as free as air, as a means of cleanliness, nourishment and health. In the hands of any other power than the Common Council, this free use would be restrained, and the experience of all other Cities (and our own may be included) teaches us the sad lesson that the trust of this power would be abused.'^'' In the three-day election that April, the voters overwhelmingly supported the proposal, 17,330 to 5,693, with only the three sparsely populated upper wards which were still blessed with rela- tively pure wells voting against the measure. At once the Common Council authorized the issue of $1 million in bonds paying 5% inter- est, to be redeemed in 1860. For financiers, the project offered a sound investment and fresh opportunities for speculation. The Panic of 1837 slowed but did not stop construction, though it did bring investment to a standstill. As a result, the City sold $1.2 mil- lion in bonds in Europe between 1838 and 1840. This only flooded the bond market, however, and depressed the price of the water bonds to $79, or $21 below par. Ultimately such financial misman- agement increased the total cost of the Croton system by $3 mil- lion, almost a quarter of the final cost." Citizens expected that the new water supply would have immedi- ately beneficial effects, among them "increased comfort and health," and "superior cleanliness of the streets and the consequent purity of the atmosphere." They also anticipated a lessened danger of fire and lower insurance rates. Rates did indeed drop and, confi- dent of a sound retum. Investors poured their capital into new insur- ance companies. Unfortunately, another fire in 1845, three years after the opening of the Croton system, destroyed many blocks in the business section below Wall Street, wiping out several of the new firms, but that was the last great conflagration in the century.^® Another benefit was the creation of public baths. The People's Washing and Bathing Establishment opened on Mott Street In 1852. This enterprise featured a separate "swimming bath" for boys and girls, costing 3(t, "closet baths" upstairs for men and women for 5t, and laundry facilities on the third story, complete with tubs, hot water, drying racks, and irons. Immediately popular, it was soon one of the heaviest users of water in the City.^^ Reform-minded New Yorkers believed that the introduction of 'pure and wholesome water" would remove an excuse for the con- sumption of strong drink and lessen the unpleasant effects of pub- lic drunkenness, particularly among the lower classes. By one esti- mate, the City had over 2,000 dram shops and hundreds of grocery stores that also sold hard spirits. Hopes that more would imbibe "Adam's Ale" instead of strong drink were disappointed, however.^^ Croton water actually may have saved the City's breweries, for the local product had so deteriorated that beer-drinkers preferred Philadelphia brews over New York's own. There was a decided improvement in the City's disease environ- ment, though the impact was not immediate. In the decades prior to the introduction of Croton water, the death rate averaged below 30 per 1,000 inhabitants, except during the cholera years when the rate climbed to as many as 50 per 1,000. Ironically, the promise of improved living conditions for the working poor remained unfulfilled. The ratio worsened in the 1840s and 1850s after the opening of the Aqueduct to about 40 per 1,000, and in the cholera year of 1849 it surpassed 60 per 1,000. Of course, this did not affect all inhabitants equally, for while 12% of the native-born Americans who died that year fell to cholera, the rate rose to almost 40% among immigrants. 2^ The discrepancy resulted from the difference in living conditions, the Americans living in newer homes uptown, usually connected directly to the Croton system, beyond the congested Immigrant neighborhoods downtown. Furthermore, the affluent left the City entirely during the disease-prone summer months. The availability of Croton water was perhaps the only amenity for the residents of the teeming tenement districts below Canal Street. Between 1820 and 1850, the population density had intensified from 157 persons per block to 272 per block (those figures would pale compared to the terrible overcrowding of the late 19th centu- ry), and those people were using the same outdoor privies and cesspools. Few tenement owners willingly paid the $10 annual fee to connect their buildings to the Croton system, and conditions actually worsened in the succeeding decades. In 1857, two-thirds of all reported deaths were the children of foreign-born parents, and throughout that decade more than half the children died before their fifth birthday.^^ The Croton