Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-05-15
THE GREAT RAILROAD WAR.
The Housatonic Petition the Order
 ofthe Day in the House.

The Housatonic Petition the Order
 ofthe Day in the House.
 HARTFoRD, May 15.-The first busi- ness of importance ill the house this morning was the passing of the act re- lating to private corporations which provides as follows: No officer or di- rector of any manufacturing corpora tion shall borrow any of the funos of the corporation or use the same for any purpose other than the business of the corporation, without paying interest to such corporation for the use of such money and without a two-third vote of all the directors of such corporations, and without furnishing adequate collateral or other security for such loan.' An amendment was offered by Mir O'Neil putting in the word legal between the words paying and interest which was rejected.
 At promptly II o'clock MT Bacon of Middletown, clerk of the railroad con- mittee, called from the table the Housa- tonic railroad matter which was the order of the day at that time. There were not half a dozen members absent. Before the session opened the lobby was busy scene. Gentlemen of the third house were skirmishing briskly about interviewing members and putting in their best licks before the decisive mo-
 
 arrived. Before the debate commenced Speaker Perry said that he should re- gret exceedingly to be obliged to order the aisles cleared of persons who had no business there. It was made vote of the house some time ago that no one should occu- py the seats except the members them selves or by his or their permission. All | the lawyers who have been employed by both the Housatonic and Consolidated railroads and the majority of the man. prominent part in the war that has been going on since the Convening of the pres ent legislature were present and occu- pied seats ranged around the sides of the hall. Mir O'Neil made a motion that the time of the members arguments be linn | ited to ten minutes each which was unanimously adopted.
 Mir Brown, house chairman of its rail road committee, offered an amendment to house bill No. 459 an act amending an act relating to its building of branches by railroad companies and a report of minority of the com mittee on railroads that the prayer there of ought to be granted and submitting d resolution which was subStitantially house joint resolution No 294, which is a resolutive amending the charter of the Housatonic Railroad company. He gave history of the Housatonic road since its inception, how it had at times strug- gled for existence through unjust state law discrimination in favor of other roads while this was one of the first roads built in the. United States and should have been fostered and favored by the state. He said that the report unfavorable to the Housatonic roads pc tition rendered by the majority of the railroad committee was not only mis- leading but were untrue. He accused the members who signed the majority report of having attempted to prejudice the representatives by substituting in place of the real evidence given before the committee, much that he could not remember of having ever heard before. He said that but for the Consolidated road the petition would have been granted long ago. The key to the whole situation was simply this: He had heard one of the committee say wh.. had signed the majority report, that he would favor the Housatonic plea to build a parallel road. if it would not come in conflict with the business of the Con- SOlidated road.