Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-07-09
Underground Wires IN New York.

From the Baltimore sun.
Since Mr.. Roswell r. Flower has become
member OF the electrical subway commits.
sion of New York city, aud the announce
ment OF his purpose to carry out ~ speedily
as possible the law requiring all telegraph
and telephone wires to be put under ground,
1t would seem as il the commission, that had
been sleeping over the matter for the past
two years and each member of 1t drawing
salary of five thousand dollars a year, had
at last decided upon the system to be adopted.
After taking into consideration the difficult
ties of the various plans submitted To the
commission, it suggests "a conduit of asphalt
~ beng cheaper, freer from moisture, con-
traction and expansion, more durable, and
the best of any As n nun-conductor Ot heat
and electricity" The commission propose
that this subway shall ue built at the pub
lie expense, aud the companies using il shall
make return by the payment of tolls" The
objection already raised to the plan is that
ait discrimination OF many plans, all ofthem
patented, apparently, thus opening the way TO
litigation, while the letting out of the work
TO construction company might easily lead
to lobbery." The Western Union company,
1t Is said, is already beginning to raise this
cry. 1t has been evident all along that no
company wants to put its wires under ground
either al Its own expense or by concert
with other companies, nor do the COM
panies want to pay tolls for the use of a sub
way built 10y others. Imperative as the law
Is, they have fought ii off up to the present
time, and as long as they can delay the action
OF the commission they will continue TO do
So On one thing only the commission has
taken positive grounds 1t has prohibited
the erection OF any new poles in New York
city, and when recently some were raised it
ordered them TO be cut down. 1t is quite
possible that continuous system of under
ground wires could not, with our present
experience, be carried out. But 1t does not
follow that it is impracticabIe to relieve our
principal thOroughfares of their network of
wires, relegatiug some OF the aerial wires
with their unsightly poles to the back streets.
This has been done to q considerable extent
in Washington and in Chicago, and there
seems to be no reason why, to this extent at
least, the evil should not be remedied. Even
in New York the Edison electric light wi-Ss
are put under ground and, so lar as we know,
are working successfully. 1t would be an
lmPutalon .oS Tie genius of American in
-AeriSis to say that they would toe unable
to cure the defects that the telegraph
companies allege are common to all
the plans that have been submitted
To them, when they have been far over
come abroad that Germany has fifteen thous.
and miles of underground wire in operation
and France over seven thousand miles. In
both these countries the cables used are
similar in construction to the submarine
cables, and are laid in deep trenches i'm
bedded in a bitumnous LAYER OF condensed
coal tar. But the conduit system, as adopted
in Chicago and suggested with notifications
by the electric subway commission in New
York, Is said to be an Improvement over the
German and French methods. 1t should be
remembered also that 1t is only in the larger
cities that the putting of these wires under
ground has become necessity, and that
outside of them the stringing of wires on
poles is not regarded as in any way obiec-
tionahe,