Morning journal and courier., 1880-05-17

| InIeESsb py great ulttlly gus uSerS NIT. COO- l gan wants the company to show cause why ii should not be compelled to furnish him gas
 at the rate of seventy five cents per thousand,
 as per contract. Since the Municipal Con- | pany transferred its interests to the New York Gasight Company the latter has re- fused to furnish gas at less than two dollars l and twenty-five cents per thousand. The 1 question which will arise is whether the Mu- l nicipal Company has the legal right to trans fer it's interests without regard to existing l contracts, and whether it has not forfeited it's
 charter. When the Municipal Company con-
 menced operations it was predicted that it
 would not carry out its promises to the pub lie.
 MT. Marzetti, one of the directors of the
 Railway and General Light Improvement
 Company, has received a lesson from the
 English court of appeal which he will be likely
 to remember, and which other directors may
 find profit in. The board of directors of
 which Marzetti was a member passed a res
 olution appropriating $3, 25O for 'fprelimina- ry expenses" Marzetti was present at the
 meeting, and voted for the resolution
 without making any inquiry as to what the
 preliminary expenses" were. As a mat ter of fact the purpose for which the money was voted and used was fraudulently raising the price of the company's shares in the market, or, as the Master of the Rolls ex- pressed it, rigging the market" It was not claimed that Marzetti was a knowing party to this fraud, or that he knew or sus- a1o1 ,+, c tent or guilty knowledge was concerned, he was innocent. He was held liable solely on the gronnd of negligence in voting away the companys money without knowing or in quiring for what it was to be spent The court intimated that Mir. Marzetti might have escaped legal liability if the finance commit tee of the company had reported that the payment was proper one, or he might have acted with sufficient care and diligence had he moved that the subject be referred to this committee, instead of bindly voting for the resolution authorizing the payment.
 The last number of the American Architect has an interesting note on the Madison Square Garden calamity. The wall which gave way was thirty-four feet high about two hundred feet long, twelve inches thick, feebly tied, poorly anchored, and unsupported in it's up per story. On the supposition that it was held firm at the second floor, and calculating only for the portion above, the Architect concludes that according to the French rule 1t should have had a thickness of not less than nineteen and a half inches, while the Boston rule required three feet four inches, and the New York law six feet ten inches. ''Three-ffths of the smallest standard which is explained in detail was the actual thick ness" The Architect ascribes the calam- ity simply to the false construction of the wall, while admitting that the roof was done badly, and remarks:
 If it were not for the complete lack of un- derstanding of the principles involved which was shown by the builders summoned as ex- perts in the inquest, we should hardly think of calling attention to the fact that in so long a wall there is no question of resistance to vertical pressure that 1t Is nonsense to talk abont the weight of score of pictures, or the vibration caused by the light feet of few young dancers, being more than twelve-inch wall of that height could support the main element to be considered under such circumstances is the stability of the mass of masonry itself It is plain that for few feet from the return walls the patchwork would stand erect forever, held in place by them, under any pressure short of actual crushing strain and it is no less evident that, as the distance from the angles in- creased, their influence in retaining the wall would diminish until, at great distance, it became inappreciable, and the masonry could depend only on it's own steadiness, that is, on the width of its base in proportion to its height, just as if it stood alone and the rules for determining it's thickness become those for independent walls, columns standing alone