National Republican., 1883-07-30
THE COMMISSIONERS.
Current Transactions ut the Various Dis
trtCt Offices.

trict Offices.
At their meeting on Saturday the assessors
made the following changes in assessments of
Improvements on Sargent road in the coun-
Try:
Tho improvements on Thomas Philips
property increased from $500 to $1,000; Henry
Stellon's, 1900 to S2,200; George Lamhardt's,
from $3.50 to $500, and lot 217 decreased from
$500 to 5000. Lots 8, part of 9 and Z in
square 30, in Georgetown, were all changed
to 30 cents per square foot at the request of
the assessor of that district, j. w. Davis The
depot of the Baltimore and Potomac Railway
company was assessed at S125,000 A large
number of appeals were acted upon.
A liquor license was granted on Saturday
10 Francis +. Reickart.
Mrs. Charlotte Smith has addressed n letter
to tho commissioners urging the necessity of
providing room of detention for persons ar
rested on suspicion.
Permission is asked by the fire department
to place telegraph poles in alley at n street,
between Seventeenth and Eighteenth streets
northwest.
John A. Joyce has informed the commits
sioners that the crop of grass and weeds in
the gullies of Road street, in Georgetown, is
ripe and ready to cut.
Messrs. Crittendcn and Mackey have com
planned of the slowness of action in cases of
special assessments which have been referred
to them.
The inspector of buildings has been re-
quested by Engineer Commissioners Lydecker
to devise some way by which restrictions can
be made to the issuing of permits for bay
windows and towor projections The prac-
tCe of having bay windows on houses that
cost from 80 900 TO So, 500 has become general
in this city. According to the regulation
parties can erect a building on the corner of
street or on the point of flat-iron-shaped
lot, and have succession of bay windows,
tve-feet projections, each fourteen feet wide,
and actually double their house room by COW
oring the public ground, and in the erection
| of row of houses succession of these pro-
jections can be carried on indefinitely for
whole blocks, with only seventeen inches
space between the windows. There is much
complaint about this abuse, and it is not i'm
probable that the cost of such permits may be
| increased, so that they may be less desirable
in future. Nothing definite has been fixed
upon as yet.
A bill paid by tho commissioners to the
gas company for the erection of lamp posts
was recently dsallowed by the. comptroller
on the ground that there is no authority in
the law for such an outlay
In support of his position he cites section
| 12, act of congress, regulating gas works, ap-
proved June 23 1874, United States statutes
| (vol. 10, page 2S0), which reads rs follows:
That the city of Washington shall furnish when
necessary new lanterns to replace old ones, and
aud shall furnish and pay for the reasonable eX.
pense of erecting new lamp posts TO replace such
rs are old, damaged, and unfit for use.
Judge Lawrence holds that this is intended
to apply only to the repair of old lamp posts
or to their replacement by new ones, but that
where new lamp post is erected where none
grew before, as it were, the gas company must
supply it without expense to the city. The
gas company has already brought suit to re-
cover the money.