Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-06-02
s,r.e, RnIIrona nIeetinrs.


street Railroad Meetings.
The meeting on Thursday night, TO take
into consideration the proposed repeal of the
per capita tax on the passengers Of the street
railways, was probably fair exhibition Of
the spirit and motives Of the opposition to
modification Of the contracts between the
city and the railway companies. The opposi-
tion is instigated entirely by hostility to
street railroads, and the tax is insisted upon
as means of running them. The resolutions
show this one of them constituting a COM
mittee to raise fund for testing the right of
the companies To lay their tracks in the
streets, and another denouncing them as
Adventures making our city place for
their illegitimate schemes to rob our citizens
and deprive us of our honest rights" Ac-
cording TO the newspaper reports, the only
argument that was offered against the modi-
fication of the contracts was against any right
to use the streets at all for railroads, and the
contracts seem to have been insisted upon as
a means of crushing them out.
This feeling and the mob spirit which was
exhibited in the proposals to tear up the
track, have probably been much encouraged
NV the uncertainty in the legal principles
relating TO the subject which has grown out
ofthe vascillating and contradictory decisions
of our Superior Court; the recent decision
being directly contrary to decision Of the
same Court, without dissent, in 1854 in a
case to which the Ohio and Mississippi Rail-
road was party. Nothing is more destruc-
tive to respect for law than uncertainty and
caprice in its administration. Bad laws may
be endured; and bad Judges who maintain an
appearance of consistency and stability in
their decisions; but a very conscientious
Judge may destroy respect for law, and
actually be the means of instigating its viola
tion, leading TO incalculable mischief, by
unstable decisions which seem to the
popular mind to be founded on no fixed
principles, and to be governed entirely by
caprice, or perhaps by the vicissitudes of the
digestion. Such judges are aptly described
in what the Scripture says of Ephraim HUn-
stable as water thou shalt not excel" and
"Ephraim is as cake unturned;" meaning,
baked only on one side. B. asu -NA
The clear exhibition of the nature of the
opposition to the modification of the con-
tracts, which was made by the meeting on
Thursday night, was necessary to make it
consistent with the common sense Of those
engaged in it; for, that any numbers of citi-
zens, however small, should agitate them
selves and assemble together TO insist that
the right to pay one cent to the city for the
privilege Of using the street cars on theil
own highways, should be preserved sacred tt
them, and handed down to posterity un-
impaired-as we say on the Fourth O
July-quite surpassed the bounds o
reason. It is a relief to lind that no one
has been stricken with this clap OF non
sense, unless it may have beep in the Gaze"
and Times offices, in which cases it is not un
accountable, as elements viii follow thei
afinities.
A series of these anti-railroad meeting
will have excellent effect in placing th'
merits OF the controversy iairly before TN
people, and it is probable that the meeting
and the papers above honorably mentioned
were in error in supposing, or stating--th
terms are not always synonymous-that tn
Railroad Companies instigated any movemen
to break up the meeting, for itrseems to u
that no means SO effectual as such meeting
can be used to aid the Railroad Companie
in their purpose. n W ENA-tF'
We fear that human nature would be a
incomprehensible element If its representa-
tions by some of the Cincinnati paper
were accepted as true, and perhaps it will b
found that these are representations of thei
own internal condition rather than Of publ
sentiment; for it is quite improbable that an
os n.a.s sIsaao ,s' that Ri. r;oh, ~ nav Tho c;t
AP9S a,
ior tne priVi'ege ol fiaias u .re o.1' y, "
railroad companies on 'ne nignwayS snoui
be lealOuSiy guarded; OF tnat ne WOuuu lee