The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-07
From Our o,cn Correspondent
NEW YoRS, Oct. g. 1870.
An Ice Question aud N Nice Question.

are 10 procure our Ice, Is one OF the most inter-
esting and engrossing that can possibly occur to
the mind of the modern housekeeper. 1t is a
complicated question, too, aud one which, like
the origin of evil, it is impossible for some in
tellects to understand. Still, none of us are so
stupid as not to realize the significance of the
fact that an Ice Consumers Company has been
organized, aud that the object of the company
is to furnish ice to every one at a reasonable
rate. Since it took its rise in New York, it may
fairly take rank as a METROPOLITAN ism, and be
entitled to notice here.
In the early part of the present year Mr..
French, of French's Hotel, was in the act
of making arrangements with the Washington
! Ice Company. the objet (which arrangements
was to supply his hotela amoderate price. The
7 comrany's hook-keeper yreed to supply the ice
up TO the lsl of June for TIN ee dollars per ton,
and from the 1st of June to the 1st of De-
cember Tor three and hall 10 lars. Soon after
this agreement was consumn o8ed, the company
raised its price to twenty dol,a,s per ton. When
reminded OF the terms of their contract with
Mr.. French. the company declared that it had
never authorized the action of its book-keeper,
AM it subsequently discharged that gentleman
for maintaining that in making the agreement,
he had acted strictly in accordance with its
instructions. Mr.. French, on the other hand,
refused to pay the twenty dollars per ton, and
companies. The other companies, however, as
though in league with the Washington Com
pany, absolutely refused to be any more accom-
modatng than il was. and ultimately
Mr.. French was compelled to pay the bills
presented by the Washington Company. The
last named association however, far from TAX
ing any blame upon ITSELF asserts that the news
papers are responsible for the whole business.
1t declares that if the press had kept num-"
and not been so ol1icious in informing the ice
dealers Of Maine of the increased value of ice,
those ice. dealers would not have become so ex-
orbitant, and the company might have had
bought ice from them at two dollars ton and
shipped it for one and half. These excuses,
however were not persuasive enough to prevent
Mr.. French from taking certain measures to
protect himself from the rapacity of the ice
companies. OF course he found plenty of fell
low-sufferers to join him, and the result of the
efforts of these gentlemen the formation Of
the company which is now known as the Con-
sumers' Ice Company. Philadelphia ought to
be interested, no less than New York ought to
be, in knowing what this company has done, is
doing, and intends to do, for Phlladelphians
certainly suffered enough last summer from
the unexampled prices which were asked
by ice. dealers. 1t has purchased
land at point on the Hudson opposite German
town, few miles above Cltskill, and has
already spent on the blasting alone more money
than it paid for the ground. 1t is building
ice house two hundred feet by four hundred,
and capable of holding sixty thousand tons of
ice. The ice is to he shipped in barges by way
of the Hudson, and so many hotekeepers have
interested themselves in the movement, that a
great deal OF patronage has been transferred to
it from the Washington Company. At any rate
the new company (the Consumers) is fully Or
ganized under the laws of the State, and its
capital to start with, consists of two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. The principal sup
porters of the enterprise pledge their word that
they are willing TO spend millions rather than
that the enterprise shall tall through, and the
old order of extortion be continued. If these
things are so, perhaps we may be justified in
looking forward to next summer with some de-
gree OF confidence. We have suffered so much
from a sordid spirit in the old ice companies
that we have one of the strongest motives to en-
courage the new.
A Correction Asked.
VIII YOU permit me to make brief statement
in refutaton of some remarks which have
observed in one or two of the Philadelphia
newspapers, and which are in disparagement of
theatrical criticism in New York in general
Fortunately for the truth OF what have to say,
/ am placed in such circumstances as qualifying
to be something of judge in that matter, and if
my judgment proves worthless it is because
of some fault or deficiency in myself, not be-
cause of those circumstances.
Among the dramatic editors then, connected
with the New York press, you will find some of
the best writers and some of the worst writers
in the country. You will find men who can
write purer English than is written by the same
class of men in London, and the expression Of
whose Just judgments is guided by refined
instinct and pure poetic taste. You will find
miserable pretenders, the poverty of whose
English, the shallowness of whose ideas, and
the proiuudity of whose ignorance make them
objects of pity. You will find venal hack
writers who will habtually contradict them
selves Tor five dollars, and who vibrate between
the two extremes of puffery and blackguardtsm.
conscientious principle, and who not
withstandiDg the conscientious princi-
pie are biased by unconscious preju-
dice and equally unconscious mean personal
feeling and you will find men of generous senti-
ment whose culture does not by any means
keep pace with their good intentions. You
will find very, very few who devote their lives
to their profession, and who make it their great
object to know what truth is and then to tell it.
Still, even these are to be found. But when the
( critic of one widely-circulated newspaper goes
into ecstacies over Carlotta PATHS 'mezzo-
soprano voice, and the critic of another says
of Fdzio that it is a new dramatization from the
French, or, when third influential journal pub
fishes six-column article about Nilsson, grant
il seems, for the moment, as If little that's COM
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