The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-01-28
RULES AGAINST THE
BOROUGH OF PYNE
Judge Archibald Dismisses the Petition
for Two Reasons.
THE APPLICATION WAS DEFECTIVE
But. Anyhow, the Judge Says, the
Borough Would Not Have Been
Favored, Because There Is No Ex-
cuse for It--Two Opinions by Judge
Edwards-- Bankruptcy Discussed at
Length in One of Them.

Payne borough Is not to be. Judge
Archibald in an elaborate opinion hand
ed down yesterday afternoon dismissed
the petition and directed the petit
tioneers to pay the costs.
In the opinion he first discussed the
exceptions and then the merits of the
petition. The first exception in itself.
he holds is sufficient for the denial of
the charter. The act of 1895, which i'm
poses on court, instead of the grand
jury, as heretofore, the duty of passing
upon the merits of such cases, proceeds
that notice of the application for char
ter shall be published for at least thirty
days prior to the regular term of COM
mon pleas at which it is to be presented.
In the present case this was not done,
the petitioners, evidently following the
prescriptions of the repealed law in the
matter of advertising. Relative to the
merits of the case Judge Archibald says:
From the knowledge which we person.
ally and judicially have of the locality,
as well as from the evidence which has
been laid before US we do not think that
the application should be granted. The
territory does not in any respect have the
characteristics which call for its incor-
poration into borough. 1t embraces
ma and Old Forge, but what there is to
associate together the two particular parts
of these townships which have been
taken, it is difficult to see. That one IS
contiguous to the other is about all that
seems to have brought it about AS to
the part taken from old Forge there is
hardly house or a road in 1t.
VACANT TERRITORY.
1t is lust so much vacant territory, val
liable for raising taxes no doubt because
the most of it is coal land, but without the
suggestion of an organized community.
Such as we expect to find in the nucleus
of a borough. 1t is just as well off as it
is, and there is no occasion for
separating it from the township
to which it now belongs. AS to
the portion which is taken from
Lackawanna, it is largely of the same
character as that taken from Old Forge.
There are. 1t is true, three or perhaps four
different collections of miners houses in
it, but they are each half "a mile or more
apart and there Is a vast amount of moth
ing outside of and in between them.
The small settlement at the Continental
mines lies Immediately adjacent to the
city of Scranton, and is quite closely iden-
titled with that part of the city. If it has
need of municipal government it is from
that direction that it ought naturally to
come, ana the same may De Sall Oh the
still fewer houses near the Sloan mines.
The people about the Archibald and the
Pyne collieries, on the other hand, are
quite closely allied with those at Taylor,
fully as much so indeed as with each 9TH
er, and could well be Joined to that pros
porous borough. There is nothing in their
own condition to have them made into a
borough by themselves.
In this teeming LackaWanna valley-on
the western edge of which this territory is
found-Where one town crowds upon the
next so that you pass from one to the
other almost without notice, 1t is quite
significant that the territory now proposed
to be turned into a borough presents no
such features, but remains vacant and un-
settled the same as it has long been. With
the coal mining business a its full height
there is no prospect that existing condi-
tions there will change, or that any of
the mining settlements embraced in this
petition will ever grow together or ad-
vance to the position where organized
municipal control as a single community
will be called for over them.