The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-07-08

NeW 1Ofks Aldermen nave made an attempt to foiloY the lead of Philadel- plia and Toledo in attacking the ice companies for raising the price of their
 merchandise. The companies assert, On the other hand, that the advance they have made from 30 cents to 40 cents per loo pounds is really very small, considering the short crop of last winter, both ifi New England and on the Hudson, which was an import ant factor in settfng the value of ice. The unusually early hot wave, too. has interfered very much with the ealcu- lations as to supply and demand made earlier in the season. while tha dsfi. culty and expense of delivery increases every year .n proportion to the con- stant spread of the city over new areas and the augmensing number of tall skyscrapers, evsry story of which must be served with ice. Almost ev- cry business condition is differeht in New York from what 1t is in other cit- .es. and problems of price and service here must be considered and adjusted entirely in view of local circumstances.
 With q Ss00-a.day ferry upon it's hands now, the city of Greater New York is planning to ,uy another. The Staten island Ferfv was a paving proposition before the city bought 1t in order to reward . larger number of faithful political heelers, but t@the goth street, Broeklyn. Ferry. gave little promise of dividend, even though op- erated by private company without in1pecunious friends to look out for. Two years ago the city offered, through the Board of Estimate and Apportfon- ment, to purchase the 39th Street Fer rY At that time, the company valued the property at approximately s1.0O0,- 900. Since then. the city, proceeding with Its usual speed in such matters, mas been having the property con- demned. Two years of condemnation have as yet placed no purchasing value upon the property, but two years of delay and frontage improvement have materially raised the prices of all dock property 'Tt is not unlikely" says F. H. Bergen, an officer Of the ferry com pany, that the original proposition which we made to the city two years ago and which the city then consid- cred too high. will now. after this lapse of time, be found too low by the Val uation Committed" Thus does a be- nisn municipality seize the public utilities for her citizens, and thus do the grateful citizens, in order to foot the bills, reach far, far down into their pockets after those coins of the realm which they have managed to save from the grasp of private ownership.
 
 Police Inspector schmittbaraer of inc Tenderloin addressed some public school pupils the other afternoon, exhorting them to practice virtue and do their duty. About the same time a party of omcers from down town stations broke into four gambling houses in Schmitt- berger's precinct and captured no end or or gamblers and gambling apparatus. The raid was rather novel and origi- nal arair in that the officers making 1t were shut tip in q huge storage van which drove around from place to place and discharged it's load of plain clothes men armed with axes and sledgeham- mers, who broke In the doors of the suspected houses and surprised their before any alarm could be given. It was a sort of up- o-date ap- plication of the wooden horse plan by which the Greeks captured Troy; the effect on the gamblers was highly un- pleasant, but not half so much so as that upon Schmittberger. who had nev- CT been able to find anything wrong about the places so successfully raid ed, and who hadn't the least idea that his supertors were going to conduct such vice crusade in his territory. Consequently, everybody Is laughing over the affair, save Schmittberxer, who has been transferred to the pass toral quiet of Staten Island, and the gamblers, who have got to stand trial for their doings.
 There are 5000 places in New York which deal in liquor, and 1t is said that all but TOO of them sell adulterated It costs only 40 cents a gal lon to manufacture a beverage called old rye" which is retatled at IS cents