Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-01-20
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THURSDAY EVENING. JAN. 20. 1881.
What They Hcve to Say.
The managers Of the gas company Go
not hasten to accept our invitation to
them to use our columns for the purpose
of making statement to the public of
the reasons for the poor quality Of the
gas, the increase in the gas bills, and the
failure to light the city lamps while
charging for them as though they had
been lighted. They appear, however, in
our cotemporary, the Eraminer, in an
article signed &C. An Old Gas Consumer"
It is a remarkable statement, and will
interest our readers, for whom we re-
print it just as it appears in the Erami-
ner, which seems to have been exceed
ingly faithful to its manuscript copy.
As the only explanation so far vOuch-
safed, on the side of the gas company, it
is valuable as showing the best foot they
can put forward.
The INTELLIGENCEE is charged with
making bitter personal attack upon the
Messrs. Bacmgardner. This charge is
only SO far true that we have said what
we think and what the community
thinks about the gas service; and it be-
came personal to the Messrs. Baumgard-
ner only because they own nearly all the
stock Of the company and moreover re-
ceive, from the company, as owners of
the patent under which the gas is made,
a royalty of fifty cents thousand feet
for all the gas that is made. They are,
therefore, essentially the gas company,
and, as its managers and owners, are en-
titled to all the credit and blame for its
administration.
The severe winter is given as the rea-
son for the non-lighting Of the city
lamps, it being claimed that they are
frozen and cannot be remedied in this
weather." BY which we presume we are
to::understand that the $50 dark lamps in
the city are to remain dark until they
thaw out in the spring OF summer, and
meanwhile the gas company is to 60 Oh
with the regular collection of its bills for
lighting these lamps at SIS per lamp per
year, according to contract, during the
failure of the gas to burn; a dispensation
of Providence upon the city which it
should cheerfully bear, thanking God,
while it pays for the gas that wouldn' t
burn, that only 150 of the lamps were
thus refractory all the winter through.
And there is cause of graduation in
that, is there not, when we come to
think Of it? 1t is odd, too. There really
was no good reason why the $50 should
freeze that did not affect the others.
Naturally they would have been unan-
imous. The " severe winter should
have darkened them all and that it did
not is cause of joy.
This freezing of gas is novel idea
too. This new gas company is giving
us plenty of new ideas. We used to think
that gas wouldn't freeze under about a
thousand degrees of cold. We never
had it to freeze before. Our old water
meters used to freeze, but not the gas.
In truth the gas supplied to our houses
now never freezes in the pipes away from
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freeze in ascending the upright gas posts
from the supplying mains, when it finds
no trouble in getting into our houses. If
we were gas experts we would know
these things perhaps and would not
find them so novel. Perhaps it is the
water that freezes. But what is the
water doing along with the gas? We
know the gas is made out of water and
coal oil, but the water ought not to get
into the pipes any more than the oil; we
do not buy either of the original elements
of the gas, but only their product.
We hardly think it strange, however,
that we do not understand these things ::
for we cannot understand, either, why
we should pay for the gas that does not
burn in these frozen lamps; we admit
that this is proof of our dense stupidity.
An Old Gas Consumer says that
everybody does not have larger bills this
winter than usual. We are delighted to
know it and feel disposed to congratu-
late them and the company on the fact.
But we cannot equally congratulate the
company on the fair register of its me-
ters. Ii the gas is put through them all
at the same pressure there ought to be a
reasonable uniformity in the bills and
a great variance in bills would seem TO
indicate equal variance in the meters.
" An Old Gas Consumer cries shame
on the grumblers about the gas bills, be-
cause many Of them are Republicans,
and he reminds them that their magni-
tude is " the result of illuminations dur
ing the past political campaign, which
ended SO gloriously for us Republicans.
That is very refreshing. 1t is interesting
to us Democrats to hear that we may
grumble about our gas bills because we
burned our gas in vain for Hancock, and
to feel that our Republican fellow-citi-
zens who growl along with us are as
mean as their politics to grudge the gas
they burned for Garfield. What model
Republican IAN Old Gas Consumer"
is, to be sure! He ought to be solicited
to accept the senatorial nomination.
The suggestion of his name surely would
unite every Republican legislator. Such
a burning ardor of Republicanism
should be set out in a high place to ill.,
creation it is wasted in the
streets of Lancaster where SO many
lamps, too, are dark and frozen.