Waterbury Democrat., 1903-01-02
A TUNNEL FOR SALE.
Being No Longer Needed, the Town
 Council Tried to Sell It for Post Holes.

The opposition of some of the al- Germen to the franchise sought by the Pennsylvania Railroad company for tunnel across Manhattan kin Aled the recollection of a man who many years ago was a city father in his old town, says the New York Sun.
 '"The town was finished long time ago." he said. but when I was member of it's city council we ex- ] pected it would attain the altitude of metropolis. The population was about 5000 and it is now less than that by nearly one-half. It lost it's opportunity to become a railway ter minal when it refused to vote bonds | to tine first railroad built west of the Mississippi river.
 "A sluggish stream flowed through the center of the place and lost it. self in the Big Muddy. This stream ! had to be crossed in going to and i'll coming from the steamboat landing, ] and as steamboating was our only means of transportation everybody went to the river when 0 boat ar i rived.
 Many team got stuck in the mud of the banks of that creek. It was l the one thing which the taxpayers were willing to put up money to rem ! edy. council was elected pledged 1 to bridge the creek.
 "After an appropriation had been voted to employ an engineer from another city, he planned what was known as a brick culvert. It cost about $3, ,5Oo.
 | About the time it was completed 1 a drouth struck the country and the creek ran dry. If my recollection is not out of plumb, the bed of that creek has remained dry ever since. | This condition made the culvert val ueless.
 ''Then the citizens of the town used to take days off to cuss the council that had this work constructed. l When the time came to elect another 1 council every member of the culvert council was relegated to private life.
 "Then the question came up in the new board as to what could be done with the culvert. The question was debated for months.
 Finally one of the members-he was afterward elected to congress l to get rid of the $3, 500 work. He was a good deal of wit, but his humor was so dry that you never could tell whether he was in earnest or trying to do something funny.
 "He made a speech one night on the proposition to get rid of the cul- vert, in which he said that he had recently visited an Indian tribe in the northwest which had shown a. disposition to engage in agriculture. He said the Indians had decided to build fences around their tepees, but they did not know how to dig post poles for fence posts.
 "'They had appealed to him to en- tighten them. He then proposed to sell them a lot of post holes made olution to the council to sell the cul- vert to the Indians. 4.~, .
 "'They have money he said,1 in support, of his resolution, and they will buy the culvert and move it to their reservation if you will name a reasonable amount. I move,' he ad- ded, that committee be appointed to fix the sum for which the culvert may be sold to these Indians. They want post holes ready made, and this is the quickest way out to get rid of < this incumbrance and eyesore.'
 "He was so earnest in his manner that the council actually named a committee to arrange for the sale. and the ludicrous in the proposition did not dawn upon the council until the committee had wrestled with the question for several weeks. Then the council passed resolution de- claring that the proposition was flu tile The question of disposing of the culvert was never brought ul, again." ...