The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1884-05-21
The Daily Bulletin.
ECONOMY VS..
IREET-LAMPS.

pecially may be pardoned for looking for
ward with lmpatience to the next Council
meeting at which there will be considered
matters ofimportance to the public. And,
II we may Judge the future by the past,
we may confidently expect that the con-
slderatIon Of these matters will afford
much amusement to the audience
present. Aside from the nomination OF
the city police force for the present fiscal
year, there will be another matter of more
than ordinary Interest brought up fer con-
slderaton, which will again afford an OPP
portunity for brief dscourses upon the ST
n1ncial condition of the city and the en-
forcement Of extreme economy in the man
asement Of the city affairs generally. This
matter will be promised resolution of Al
derman Woodward, favorng a cessation of
work on the Mississippi Levee and the re-
duction of the number Of street lamps to
about one-haIf their present number. Ii
will be several weeks yet before the Coun-
Gil meets again, and 1t is proba BILE that, by
that time the work on the evee will be
nearly flushed; 50 that the
first part of the proposed
resolution may be withheld. But the gas
lamps are not likely to be reduced to the
desired number, in the meantime, and
with r ference to them a resolution would,
therefore, not be entirely irrelevant. 1t is
commonly understood that the gas lamps
are a difficult subject to legislate upon.
Gas in the streets is a public necessity, not
in portions, but everywhere in the city.
We were in darkness for some time not
long since, and it was only in COM
pllanCe with a pressure from the whole
community, demand that cane from every
quater Of the city,iand that the Council
| did not dare longer to resist, that street
lamps were again established and the
darkness dispeicd. But Mr.. Woodward
does not propose to extinguish all the
lamps. He would have the number re-
duced only by sbou. one-half in the inter-
est of economy alone. 1t may be said that
Mr. Woodward will meet with the same
difficulty in this effort that he met with
when he proposed some years ago at a
meeting held in Old Reform Hail. that a
cross leyce should be built somewhere
down town. Mr. Woodward suggested
that it be built on Tenth Street, from
eyee to levee. But this WAS objected to
by gentleman who owned valuable prop
erty above Tenth Street, which he desired
enclosed by the proposed cross leyee, anc
be wanted ii built on Twelfth Street. Blu
this was objected to in turn by an owne
of property above Twelfth Street, wit
wanted the leyee built on Fourteenth
Street; smother objection came from a prop
| erty owner above Fourteenth Street, who
objected to being taxed for a levee that
wold exclude his property, and he wanted
the cross levee built on Twentieth Street.,
and so on until it was finally insisted upon
that the cross levee should be built on
Thirty eighth 50 as to include the Singer
Works, and there the project fell through,
1t may be said, we repeat, that Mr.. Wood
ward will meet with this same difficulty
in his proposition to reduce the number
OF street lamps; that the people of no por.
ton of the city, of no street or square
where lamps are now burning during dark
nights, will consent to have the lamps in
their immediate neighborhoods discon-
tinued and yet be willing to pay taxes in
order that other portions of the city may
be lighted. 1t would seem to one who per-
haps judged human nature specifically,
that it would be difficult to find any con-
siderable number of men SO thoroughly
lmbIed with spirit, either of extreme
generosity or Of excessive penuriousness,
that they would cheerfully sacrifice their
share OF the comforts provided at common
expense. But, nevertheless, we will ven
ture the entirely reasonable prediction, that
Alderman Woodward sees his way clear
that, before he so positively announced his
determination to accomplish the object in
dictated, he considered every contingency
that might oppose him. His determination
to ecunomize in the matter of street lamps
is undoubtedly the outgrowth of an express
ed popular sentiment among his own i'm
mediate constituents; and we shall con-
tidently expect, that when he offers his
resolution at the next regular meeting of
the Council, requiring the discontinuauCe
of half the street lamps in the city, he will
present also petition, headed by himself
and signed by all the voters of his ward in
front or near whose residences or places of
business street lamps are kept burning at
night, asking the Council that such lamps