Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1867-08-18

Is MAIN STREET TO BE PAVED Pit i
being talked Of. Owing to the unsettled
dispute between the City and the Stree
Railroad Company, the contractors can
not commence work.
The City claims that the Company Il
bound itself to pave between and two
feet on each side Of the track. This, We
long ago showed, is simply absurd. The
charter only binds the Company to
keep the street in order" between the
tracks and for "that distance on each
side" There is no possible ground on
which it can be even plausibly pretended
that the Company is bound to pave that
portion of the street, at the order of the
Board Of Aldermen, with any sort of
paving that it may direct, too, without
consulting the Company. To cause in
tsrminable delay by such a pretension is
utterly u~nwarrantsble and iDdefensible.
The Company, on the other hand,
holds that the city must pay the expen-
ses Of taking up the track and adapting
1t to the change of grade. We do not
think so. The courts, we should think,
will hold, that as the Company laid
down its track, knowing that it was
both the right and duty of the city au-
thorities to pave the street, it took upon
itself the risk Of that being done, and the
burthen of accommodating the track to
the pavement, as q tacit condition upon
which only 1t could have the right to
lay the track at all.
These questions ought to have been
settled long ago. 1t has now been pro-
posed hat the city shall do the paving,
and the Company take up and adapt and
relay the track, each reserving its rights,
the city to recover from the Company
for the paving which it claims that the
Company is bound to do, and the Com
pany from the city the expenses of
taking up and reIaying the track.
AS these matters had been talked and
written of for months, and as the con-
tract offered the Board for confirmation
was too plainly proper and fair to require
any deliberation, or, st any rate, its
could be determined on in five
minutes as well as in a month, one
would have thought thatit " would at once
have been either approved or rejected.
But it wasi in accordance with that " how
not to do it" system by which all Con-
crosses and other d~eliberatiye, i. e., ode
and contentious" bodies are
governed, that the matter should
90 through 'tbe process Of refer
snce to a Committee, and so it went to
)ne, Of five Aldermen, who are to lay a
next Tuesday, when it is to be
hoped that something will be done. The
consists of one Alderman
Who suggested the reference; of one
Who saw no necessity for a great hurry,
md thought the paving of Shelby street
would render that of Main street less i'm
,~erative for a while; Of n who said
nothing; and of two who wished the
contract adopted at onee.
How Alderman Shaw has persuaded
himself hat the paving of Shelby rem
Iers that of Main less imperative, a good
many persons interested in having the
after changed from a mud canal, that
be navigated by steam-scows in
winter, to a street, are curious to know.
his thoroughfare, which is q canal or
treet, according to season and weather,
q shame, a scandal and q disgrace to the
ity, an unmitigated nuisance in winter,
nd a nasty, sbominable ditch of liquid
lud and whoever thinks that paving il
not imperative must be a person of
xceedingly bad taste, and deficient in
'ue Aldermsnic perception Of what is
{ to be done to relieve the city of the
ltolerable abomination of mud. {