San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-09-21
The Daily Eight.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER d, H93
EXPERTS RAcY REPORT

Considerable discussion through
the newspapers has been made of
late relative to the condemnation
of the garbage furnaces by thecity
council, and number of citizens
are DESTROYS of reading the report
of the experts, which has been
freely talked of by those in whose
presence the report was read In
order that all may know the exact
opinion of Messrs. Peters, Scott and
Nixon, the experts, the LIGHT pub
fishes this report in full as follows
Honorable Mayor and City Council
Gentlemen-We,t the undersigned
committee, duly appointed to eX-
anime the garbage furnaces, re-
Gently erected here, beg leave to
make the following report:
We have carefully read and
studied the contractors original
proposal, dated April ,, 1898, and
the contract for the furnaces, GATED
April 4, 1898, which shows type
written document with numerous
pen alterations, interpretations and
determinations, and "herbey hangs
the tale"
The original typewriter sheets
were evidently for one garbage
furnace, and subsequently altered
with a pen to make the contract
read for furnaces-tO illustrate:
On the first sheet and 18th line
occurs the words "A GarretsOn and
fainter Garbage Furnace" This
has been altered with pen to
read "twO GarretsOn and fainter
Garbage Furnaces" the figure two
being written over the letter a and
the plural IS added to the word
furnace.
The same alteration occurs on
the 3rd sheet.
On the first sheet where the
dimensions of the furnaces occur,
after the type written words sin
side measure" is the pen written
word "each."
Now by these alterations the
original contract for furnace has
become a contract for furnaces
and the dimensions are not altered
as the pen written word 'each" evil
IDENTIFY intends that these furnaces
shall each Of them be the dimen-
sions originally stipulated for one.
The next alteration to which we
will call your attention is the con-
tract price. The original price for
the one furnace is scrubbed over
and new price for the two furnaces
is interpolated above the line, the
new pen written figures for two
furnaces are put down as $4,000
written, and scrubbed over pre-
sumably when the other alterations
were made from one furnace to two
furnaces. An examination with a
reading glass of this partially OBJ
liberated typewriter price for one
furnace discloses that it was to be
five-thousand, dollars for the one
furnace. Now by what form of
of reasoning mathematical or
geOmetrical progression that five
thousand dollars for one article be-
comes $4,000 for two articles each
of the exact dimensions of the one,
we leave, as problem for your
honorable body of business men to
debate upon-and we then proceed
to the furnaces themselves.
We have also examined the fur
naces and watched them in opera
ton, and noted the result, and our
conclusions are: First, that the fur
naces are not what any person
would reasonably expect from read
ing the proposal, contract and cost,
$4,000.
Secondly, while we believe that
there are doubtlessly garbage fur
naces giving full satisfaction, our
Opin'o of these particular furnaces
is, that the attempt to burn night
soil combined with the garbage in
these furnaces is a hollow mOckery,
a delusiOn, a sham, and an attempt
to impeach the intelligence of the
by-standers. That these furnaces
are wrong in principle, awkward
in arrangement, wasteful in fuel,
miserable in workmanship, shame
fully and unnecessarily hard on
the operatives, an unmitigated
nuisance on the neighbors, and that
they are utterly and entirely worth
less for the purposes for which they
were intended, and finally we re-
commended that you reject them,
and refuse to receive them at any
price or on any terms.
Further, we believe that if you
had decided to accept them the
city would have been defrauded
out of $l3,000,> land received in re-
turn two nOndeScrintS. which they