The age-herald., 1898-03-24
MOT JUST YET"
 SAYS MAYOR EVANS Will the Birmingham Gas Company Be Allowed to Relay Its Mains. QUESTION OF FRANCHISE Must Be Settled by an Opinion From
 City Attorney Lowe. PREPARING TO MAKE IMP PROvEMENTS Will Double Its Capacity and Relay Rotten Mains If the City Does Not Interfere.
 The New Company is Not
 Worried in the Least.
PREPARING TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS

'The old gas company will not be granted permission to lay pipes in the streets of Birmingham until I have heard the opinion of the city attorney on the subject. The board of aldermen now claim that the gas company has no franchise from the city and this being the case they have no right to lay new gas mains in the streets of Birmingham.
 This was the emphatic statement of Mayor Evans yesterday when he learned that the Bir mingham Gas company had dis tributed new pipe along several blocks of South Twentieth street, preparatory to tearing up the streets and putting them un der ground. Inquiry at the office of the city engineer revealed the fact that the customary permission for tearing up the streets had not been obtained. It was a pretty bluff the gas company was working, but the mayor has shown that he will stop their little game. The city Is in this fight for business. and does not propose that the gas company shall run rough-shod over the people until the fight is fought to a finish; in the courts if necessary.
 Preparations of Old Company
 The old gas company is making extensive preparations to fight the new one that was chartered by the board of aldermen on Feb. r. They realize that if they are to be in the fight with the new company they must get almost an entirely new equipment. It is said that they will furnish better gas to the citizens and gas with d much higher pressure than formerly
 All these innovations are the reuslt of the Age-Herald's contention for cheaper and better gas for the city of Birmingham. All these years the company has realized that their service was rotton and the.r rates eXorbtant, but still they made no effort to remedy the evils. They knew they had a mpnoDDlV what 6id Nhet her the people had good gas not?
 But now. when there is possibility of a doubt that a rival company is in the field behold the activity and enterprise of the old company.
 New Pipes to Be Laid
 In the first place, they intend, if the city will permit them, to relay a large por tion of their gas mains. They don intend to do this all at once. but at present only those sections where the pipe is worthless. Gas mains in ten or twelve years become very much decayed. The company pro- poses first to lay new pipes in First avenue between Nineteenth and Twentieth streets. and from there to Avenue r on the south side. The pipes in this section de- fective that beyond Avenue D the gas will not pass through them. and were it not for the Eighteenth street main there would be no gas the highlands at all. This ac- counts for the low pressure in that por- ton of the city.
 Improvements at Gasworks
 The gas company also contemplated mak ing extensive improvements in its plant. In fact, preparations are being made fer nearly doubling the capacity of the present. gas works They intend to construct two new holders or gas reservoirs which will about double the present capacity for stor ing gas and for increasing the pressure. New retorts for making the gas will also be constructed.
 The fact of the business Is that the Bir- mingham Gas company is about at the end of its rope and in desperation they see that they must begin to adopt up-to-date meth- ods or be driven out of the business.
 Sol Haas, of the new gas company, when told of the improvements contemplated by the old company, said that it just what he expected, but that any improve ments they might make would not disturb the plans of the new company in the least. They had no fears of any competition the old company might put up.