outstanding characteristic of corporate development in the United States. This is especially true in the growth of public utilities. Practically all the many gas companies, as well as the electric lighting companies, which were formed in Lancaster County be- ginning with the gas industry in 1849, and the

converting them to public utilities, rather than permitting them to exist as private corporations or concerns, was in the making from the beginning. This fact will be brought out later in the paper when the provisions of the first ordinance relative to supplying water will be outlined. At the outset, I