The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1898-03-05
PROPOSES TO TEAR UP STREETS.
TEE City Gas Company WAITS to nsEiu Best
ness Undcr m lsoB Charter.


After slumbering thirty.two years q corpora
ton known as the City Gas Company Of New
York has brought TO the light of day q charter
which. It is claimed, was granted in 1865. and
this City Gas Company, under this franchise.
proposes 10 give New Workers. another evidence
Of how the streets can be torn up and traffic and
travel impeded.
Application, however, has been made to Attor-
ney-General Hancock by Francis D. Thurber and
William McCarroll for tho institution Of an
action to forfeit the franchise and annul tho
charter of the City Gas Company. Elihu Root
has been employed to appear before tho Attor.
neyIGeneral against the company, which has
retained Gen. Benjamin F. Tracy Of Tracy.
Boardman & Platt for its defence.
Tho City Gas Company, IL was asserted yester.
day. has had no existence In all these thirty-two
years, and tho claim Of those interested in the
company that under its charter they have q
right to tear IN every street, avenue, and public
place in the city Of New York for the purpose
of laying gas pipes Is to be stoutly combatod.
1t was insisted yesterday that from 1865,
when tho City Gas Company of New York Sc
cured the charter, until tho consolidation of tho
several boroughs into Greater New York. this
COMPANY COMP ayr, seems M. to have performed none ne Of tho
taking the trouble to comply with the State
laws relating TO corporations for issuing an an
hnal report; IL fs even claimed that the exist
cnce OF such n company was entirely unknown,
and, furthermore, IL is insisted that the COM
pany never did any business and never had any
ence.
One OF the used against the City Gas
Company yesterday was that between 1855 and
1892 at least six gas companies were created for
tho purpose OF performing precisely the duties
for tho city Of New York which the City Gas
Company now claims 1t has a right to
perform. These. six companies have been OK.
ercisinR the rights conferred upon them. and
instead of needing additional gas works it is
claimed that the people of New York have be-
come irritated and impatient at the number of
miles of unnecessary mains now laid in its great
thoroughtares and which constantly keep the
pavements in an inconvonient and noxious state
OF eruption.
Another arRumen used against the City Gas
Company's charter was:
IF charters of this kind can be resuscitated
and made to work. what becomes OF the special
restrictive provisions as to all franchises to use
Greater New York charteri While other fran
chises are to terminate after, at most.
tho period of twenty-five years, when
the plant or. the property of tho grantee
in the streets becomes tho property of the city,
are charters thus fshed out of tho pigeonholo
to go on forever OF what use is the proviso
for our municipal assembly TO pass on such mat
tiers by a thrce-fourths of all the votes Of both
branches, II the production of a paper which
has been hidden away for thirty.three years
gives authority to take possession Of our streets
over the heads of the municipal authority. and,
in open defiance Of both the spirit and the letter
Of recent legislation in relation to the occupancy
of tho streetsf'