The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-09-30
HTSrORr rs. PR0GRESS.

that public spirit and sheet asphalt
have prevailed on the street there is
time to consider the condition of affairs
on the sidewalk.
1t is generally admitted, we believe,
that the brick sidewalks of this city
are uneven, Those who walk ON them
in the dark or in the rain, or in both,
find them startlingly uneven. Those
who walk on them Gin liquor" find the
evils of intemperance greater than they
really ought to be in a well governed
city, and Editor Bromley Of the New
York Tribune has pointed out that no
man can walk on them in sobrlety
without feeling that he has a jag on.
Their unevenness is as great as the
unevenness of temper in a meeting
called to discuss the pavement ques-
ton, and their inequalities are as
marked as the inequality between the
Society trinity of New Haven and the
rest of the gang that lives, labors, joys,
sorrows and dies here.
| There is bylaw against the laying
| and relaying of brick sidewalks in
| New Haven. In this law is the hope
of future ages, even if the present
age can't find much hope in it on ac-
count of the slow way in which New
| Haven changes from a village round
the Green to a city. This beneffcent
bylaw has recently been attacked, and
chief and foremost in the attack upon
it is the Hon. Simeon e. Baldwin, a
Judge of the Supreme Court of Errors,
and several others things which it is
honorable and glorious to be. Those
who know Judge Baldwin's Public
Spirit and Devotion to Progress are sur
prised to find him devoted to brick
sidewalks, with all the imperfections
thereunto appertaining. But the fact
that he is so devoted sticks out like
a toe-stubbing brick on one of those
sidewalks. His reasons for his opposi-
ton to the beneficent bylaw are not
given with his usual precision and clear
ness. He does not say that he favors
brick sidewalks because he has some
and doesn't want to pay for a change,
and if he did it would be impossible to
believe that a man who could take the
attitude he did in the great Water
fight and the great Old State House
fight would suffer his private interest
to mitigate his regard for the public
interest. Indeed, we feel obliged to say
perish the thought that he would. This
thought having properly persisted let us
turn to what he said about the legal
asnect of the case He wasn't clear
even in this part of his remarks, sur
prising as this may seem to those who
| have seen him. when he was a struggling
ilawver. make the wrong side Of a case
81 clear that no judge could err
in deciding it in his favor.
He darklv limited that brick sidewalks
are constitutional. Even so doth The
Young lawyer in the City court say that
the constitutional rights of his client
who has been shooting birds in East
Rock park are attacked by the bylaws
which Judge Baldwin constructed for
the protection of the said birds and for
the protection of the public. And when
the Young lawyer is told that q city has
the right to do such things he muttars
that he doesn't believe the Supreme
court would say so. So Judge Baldwin
intimates that q city hasn't as much
right to regulate it's sidewalks as it's
streets, pours contempt on the legisla-
ture and the Court of Common Council,
and shakes the bogy of the constitution
at well established legal principles.
Does he do such things and say such
things simply because he has some
brick sidewalks which ne wants to have
exempted from the operation of a be-
nefcent and legal law? No! Tat
thought was invited to perish some
lines above. It did duly perish and will
not rbe resurrected because it is too
wicked. Judge Baldwin is not hostile to
the public good for the good of his own
pocketbook. In legal way he has done
no more than hint that brick sidewalks
are constitutional, and we take it that
this hint is only the way a great legal
mind has of impressing itself upon 9TH
er minds less great and getting what
it wants. Few people who do not sleep
with the Constitution can refuse any
thing demanded in the great name
thereof. Our notion is that Judge Bald
wins real interest in brick sidewalks
is not financial, selfish or legal It is
historical. He is the President of The