The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-02-18
IS FULL OF DEAD WIRES
Sudden Death Hanging Around
Butte Loose.
MANY NARROW ESCAPES
The Abandoned Wires Get Out OF Re-
pair and Falling Against Live
Wires Are q Menace to the
People OF Butte.

The new franchise for the World 5
Messenger company is now in the hands
OF the mayor who, by action Of the
council. has been given one weeks time
in which to approve the franchise or
veto it, What the mayors views on the
matters are. are not known, but as no
strong opposition has appeared against
the granting of the franchise, it is sup
posed that ii win be approved,
"A well-known electrician said yester-
day in regard TO the franchise. There
is one provision which ] think ought to
be put into every franchise which per-
mits the stringing of wires in Butte. It
ought 10 have been put in all fran
chises in the past and il should be put
in all in the future. | think 1t would
be a good time to start now and have
the clause placed in the franchise about
to be granted. 1t is no hardship on the
company and is merely a proper pre-
caution which may save some OF Butte s
citizens from death.
THE provision | refer To should re-
quife the company to remove Its wires
when It goes ont of business, If ii ever
goes out, or when il abandonS the wires.
Bonds should be given insuring that the
company will do this. You probably
don't know it. but ii is a fact that Butte
is full of dead wires. Every year for the
past 10 or IS years the city council has
granted permission to telegraph compa-
Mes telephone companies. electric light
and power companies and messenger
companies to string wires on its streets
| believe that IS, if not SO 1-3, per cent
of all the companies who have strung
wires in Butte are not doing business
here now and are out of existence. Yet
none of the companies going out Of bust
ness have ever taken down the wires
they put up Butte is full of dead wires
wires belong to.
Dead wires are full of death. Wires
in active use are kept in good repair
usually. But the dead wires are never
repaired and they grow weaker with
every storm. Once in while one of
these wires IL blown down, falling per-
haps against some live wire and con-
Meeting with the ground and then the
man who goes up against II never
knows what killed him. There have been
scores of narrow escapes in Butte and
q number of shocks. Ii was only few
years ago that a team of horses walked
into wire in Park street and We're
killed The wire had fallen against the
trolley wire of the street railroad conf
pany and 1t is mercy the horses We're
the victims instead of human beings.
The owner of the horses tried to get
damages and used all means to find out
whose wire IL was, but no one owned it.
1T was an abandoned wire which had
been put up by some company which
had gone out Of existence.
II think the city ought to provide be-
fore letting any more wires To he strung
that a company should give bonds for
the taking down of its wires when it
quits using them. | think il would also
be the part of prudence for the council
10 engage competent men to take down
all the dead wires. The companies now
doing business here should designate
what wires are theirs and all others
should be removed. I am not looking
for a job myself, but some electrician
should be employed to do this work. 1
don't believe the people of Butte have
any conception of the peril which there
il in electric wires. particularly during
Il storm Of heavy wind.