Morning journal and courier., 1883-08-28

got an idea that the county was not being treated fairly in the matter of the State tax and an "expert'' vas employed to visit sever- l al counties of the State for the purpose of ascertaining the relation between the assess- ments for State taxation and the valuation Of property upon which it is based. He has not yet finished his investigation, but what he found is interesting. He has found the per centage of assessment in ten counties to be very unequal, ranging from 6.4 in Monroe to 58.3 in Cayuga. The average was but 46 per cent. as against 70 in Kings. In the past it has been claimed by the State assessors that property in the large cities can afford to pay upon higher valuation than real estate in the agricultural districts. A valid criticism of this idea was made by Mayor Low, of Brooklyn, at a recent conference when he called attention to the fact that considera- ble proportion of the real estate upon which taxes are collected in Kings county and New York consists of vacant lots, from which the owners reap no pecuniary advantage while they are called upon to pay taxes at valua- ton governed by that of improved property in the neighborhood.
 Judge Lowell in the United States Circuit court on Saturday ordered 8 decree for the complainant in the suit of the American Bell Telephone company against Amos E. Dol bear and others. The opinion says that the final hearing in this case was hardly more than matter of form, because the two ques- tions which are raised by the record have been decided in favor of the plaintiff on mo- tions for preliminary injunction, which were prepared and argued with unusual thor oughness. These questions are whether the telephone described by Refs anticipates the Bell telephone, and whether Dolbear's appar- atus infringes Bells patent On the first point the judge says: sI decided in Ameri- can Bell Telephone company vs. Spencer, 8 Federal Reports, p. 509, that Refs had not described telephone which anticipated Bells invention, and the same has since been de- cided the same way in England, in the case of the United Telephone company vs- Harri- son. It is admitted in the present case that the Refs instrument, if used as he intended to use it, can never serve as a speaking tele- phone because the current of speech is con- stantly broken, and it is essential for the SAA@s S~~-@-~ should not be broken" On the second point the opinion is as follows: "At the former hearing before MT. Justice Gray and myself, we decided that the defendant Dolbear, what ever the merits of his telephone may be, em- ploys part. at least, of Bells process, and that no additional evidence has been given st the final hearing, unless g. further expla- nation of that already given may be called additional" An appeal will be taken by the respondents to the Supreme court at Wash ington.
 "Rieolo," who writes readable financial sr- ticles for the New York Sun, says Jay Gould has a very smart scheme to make money out of the government and get rid of his burden some telegraph property. Gould knows that it would take the government ten years to build 400 900 miles of poles and wires, for 40, 900 miles year would be fast building Then, again, the government could not make itself party to 8 confscation scheme by plac- ing itself in competition with private or corpo- rate enterprises. Apart from Gould's interest in the Western Union there are probably over $50 ,O0O ,0Oo invested all over the country in
 
 not be attacked by government competition without howl of public indignation. Of course, the only complete system which the government could purchase and make any immediate use of would be the Western Union, and Gould's idea, according to 'Rigolo," is to offer to give up to the gov ernment the whole of the Western Union property upon the basis of yearly payments of the surplus earnings for twenty years to come. The payment is to be made in bonds or cash, as the government prefers. This new plan would give the government the i'm mediate possession Of the lines for nothing since the yearly payments would consist only of the money earned over and above the ex- penses of running the concern upon the hasis of the existing rates for messages. It is by similar arrangement that the British gov ernment purchased the telegraphs and Gould sees there very acceptable precedent. The effort, if successful, would give him and his associates in twenty years something like S15O, GOO, 600, for the net earnings are esti- mated at $7, 5UO, 900 8 year.