The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1878-01-06

Amateur street Cleaners.
Mayor Elys appointment of committee
of the horse car railroad corporations to adj
wise him how to clear the streets in case OF a
heavy snow storm was Il most remarkable
piece of executive enterprise. Those cor
porations have been the main cause OF the
obstruction OF business during the prev
hlence of such storms, through their illegal
practice ofpiling up the snow in miniature
mountains on each side of their tracks, so
as to get their rails clear at the expense Of
all other traffic. II the Mayor foundi ii nec-
essary to call in outside parties to instruct
the city officials how TO do their duty he GER
tainly would have done better to consult the
telegraph companies, the express COM
panies or the steamship companies than to
talse counsel Of corporations which have i'm
pudently violated the city ordinances and
increased hnndredfold the Inconvenience
Of every snow blockade and the difficulties
OF removing the distractions.
The horse car corporations have generally
controlled the Common Council of the city
and have been enabled to defeat ordinances
requiring them to remove the snow and ice
from the streets occupied by their tracks as
often as they have been proposed. There
is, however, quite enough in the charters
and agreements under which they exist to
warrant city government, disposed to deal
justly by the city, in compelling them to
perform that work without any special ordi-
nance on the subject. The street railroad
companies are required to comply with
the directions of the Common Council in
all matters relating to their roads. The
Sixth avenue line is required by the con-
tract made with the city September g. 1851,
to run car on their road 'seach and every
day both ways as often as every fifteen min
utes from five to six A. NJ, every four min-
utes from six A. nj. to eight p. NJ, every
fifteen minutes from eight p. M. to twelve
P. NJ, and every thirty minutes from
twelve p NJ to five A. NJ" The Third ave-
nue. line and all others are under similar
obligations. In order to fulfil this
contract they must of course. keep
their tracks free from snow and ice
in the winter. They are further prohibited
from causing distractions in the streets
hence they cannot legally pile up walls of
snow and ice on each side Of their tracks to
the stoppage of all other traffic and the in
convenience and injury of the people living
along the line of their roads. An ordinance
passed by the Common Council in Septem-
Der, 1859, provides that ''the Eighth Avenue
Railroad Company and the Ninth Avenue
Railroad Company are hereby authorized to.
pave all the space within the outside railS
of their respective tracks with small cobble
stone, and are hereby further required to
keep the said space in repair and good
travelling condition" An efficient Mayor
and an honest Common Council could find
ground enough in these ordinances and
regulations to compel the street railroad
corporations to spend some portion of the
millions they make out of the city in clear
ing their tracks of snow and ice without
merely throwing it aside and heaping it up
to become public nuisance and obstruc-
ton.
But as our amiable Mayor has only re-
quested tlSese liberal corporations to aid
him with suggestions as to how he is to do
his own duty, without intimating that he
shall require them to do theirs, the compa-
MES favor him with 'plan" for removing
the snow and ice. The committee give him
the valuable information that clean snow
may be dumped into the river from any
dock that if the Street Cleaning Bureau
will put enough men on Broadway, between
Bowling Green and Fourteenth street, to
sweep the snow into the cutters during the
whole period of q snow storm they will find
that piece of road clear when the fall ceases,
and then if they put on q sufficient number
of men and carts they can proceed to clean
the rest Of the city. If the city will do
this the railroad corporations on their part
will laid in smoothing down the snow" and
will remove the snow from their tracks into
the gutter. 1t is evident that these railroad
philanthropists believe in their power to
"smooth down" the Mayor, but whether the
people will submit patiently to their inpu-
dent imposition is altogether different
question.
Pulpit Topics To-Day.
The opening year will give direction to
the presen tation Of thought in many of our