Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-11-29

NutS1uolkI ISt1I&SSA<Ss<<~s
TUESDAY EVENING. NOV. 20. 1881.
Obstructing the streets.
The claim of telegraph companies to
obstruct the public highways with their
poles can only he maintained upon the
ground of necessity. Certainly these
ways were never intended for such use.
Every highway is owned by the owners
of the adjacent properties, subject to the
use of the community for necessary pur.
poses of public benefit. 1t is very de-
bAtable question whether telegraph
poles, which certainly obstruct the high.
ways for their ordinary use, are neces-
sary public conyeniences. Ii there was
no other way of erecting telegraph line
except on poles, it might be plausibly
maintained that the public benefit de-
manded submission to their inconve-
niences. But they are only used because
they afford the cheapest way of building
a line. The wires might be buried and
put out of every ones way. But surely
if these poles are authorized they
ought to he used with the least pos
sible obstruction of the legitimate
use of an avenue. Otherwise they
are nuisance, and it would seem
may certainly be abated as such. The
attempt of the American Rapid-Transit
Telegraph company to put up, on narrow
sidewalks, poles twenty inches in diam
eter, can find no justification whatever.
Even the ten-inch pole is an obstruction
that we cannot be asked decently to sub
nit to, when iron poles Of half the di-
ameter, or less, could be substituted. In
Philadelphia these iron poles are required
by the authorities. And why not here
The Street which is being used by the
company is for most of its length but a
fourteen feet wide alley, and, in tie
squares near the town centre, is SO much
used as to be of inadequate size when its
whole width is unobstructed. Yet it has
here already line Of poles and this new
line of immense masts cannot patiently
be submitted to.
1t is surprising thing that citi-
zens have been SO quiet under the ag-
gravatinS impositions of telegraph COM
panies with their poles {; and it is really
astounding that the city councils should
have so little regard for the interest and
rights of citizens as to want to impose
this fresh nuisance upon them. The
right of councils to authorize such use
of the streets is denied and will probably
ne tested in the courts. But when there
is SO general an expression of public SEN
timent rs now exists against the incum-
brancc of the streets with the new set OF
poles, it would seem that there should
he no necessity for an appeal to- the
courts for protection. The sentiment of
the people ought to be so coercive of the
street committee and of councils as to
cause them to rescind their action.
The conduct of telegraph companies is
not such Us to recommend them to public
favor or to put people into Il humor to
grant them favors that are not legally
theirs. Our steady experience has been
that new companies are started as COM
petin. lines with sole intent to levy
blackmail Oh the old company and
sell out to 1t at a great profit
to the projectors. The present enter
prise may have Il more honest purpose.
but it is not heralIed with any stronger
prOtestatiOns of its continued independ-
ence than have accompanied the many
other projects that have been engullhed
in the belly of the Western Union.
With this anaconda We have no sympa-
thy, and we are quite ready to see COM
petitors spring up against it. But we
may reasonably object to paying the cost
of the game of plumber between the
new and the old. 1t is profitable
game and the parties are able to pay
for the privileges Of transit which they
seek. Let them buy the right to put
their poles on private property, just as
railroads buy their right of way. Or if
the law will permit the use of the high
ways by order of city councils and other
authorities over them, which we greatly
doubt, it should 1T least in decency be
paid for at its value to corporations such
as this new one, which has already been
shown to have been bled by its projectors
to the amount of half its capital-half
being appropriated for building the line
and the other half to the pockets Of the
enterprising cOrporators. They are to
have the dance and we to pay the piper.
MIR. EDw. MCPHERSON is understood
to be far above pecuniary want, and he
has had all the fame that attaches to
the office of clerk of the House. But