Evening star., 1909-02-01

| danger that may ensue. The pressure Is
low for. perhaps. period of two hours
| In the evening. and perhaps one hour In
the morning. and there may be lights
| burning in different parts of the house
| that are forgotten about. and soon as
| the pressure has become too low. the
| lights will go out. and Immediately the
pressure returns. there is a flow of gas
| into that part of the house and We have
| forgotten about it.
/ Mr.. Taylor-There does not seem to be
any dispute between the citizens of Ia
koma Park and the officers of the com
| pany. 1 do not know why We should
discuss it. They admit that that pressure
is lower than it should be. and admit this
menace and are willing to have certain
| regulations passed by Congress compelling
them to live up to this pressure.
Mr.. Shaw--The only point l desire to
make before you is that we want the COM
pany to provide a safer service.
Thereupon. at 12:4o pm. the committee
| adjourned)
Printed in the Record.
| The following paper was submitted by
Mr.. LIE Clerc. and is here printed in the
record in full as follows:
| ''Takoma Park, D. G..
January g. 1909.
THE citizens of Takoma Park are vitality
| interested in the recently proposed legis-
/ alton concerning the presence of carbon
monoXide in Illuminating gas. The commit
| tee on gas and lighting of the citizens
| association beg to present the following
report of complaints regarding the gas
situation in this suburb.
For more than a year the people OF
Takoma Park have been troubled with
an insufficient amount of gas for both
cooking and illuminating purposes. the
quantity being SO low that on very fire.
quent occasions the gas lights in both the
gas ovens and in the ordinary illuminat-
ing jets have become cXtinsuished. This
has been the case particularly between the
hours Of ) and I in the evening and and
9 in the morning. and We have been espe-
ciaily troubled in having our gas go out
since the month Of October. Very often
it happens that the lights which heat the
ovens of gas stoves will go out, while the
small jets on top of the same stoves or
lights in the kitchen or other parts of the
house will remain lighted. This produces
q condition which is dangerous not only
as regards fire by explosions, but in the
light of the recent disclosures, also as re-
CARDS the health and very life of our
citizens. for quite often the leakage of
gas is not noticed for some little time.
In fact. one of our citizens reports the
following case Quoting from his letter.: /:
One evening. owing to the failure to re-
member that | had two jets lighted when
the gas failed. one in my furnace room
was not turned off. Fortunately, I dis
covered the odOr of gas and located it the
next morning without a light Had the
furnace been lightd there would certainly
have been an explosion which would have
wrecked the house." In the same letter is
the following: During the latter part of
October the lights went out in all parts of
my house repeatedly in the evening" An
other citizen has written that he had a
light burning low in his dark room just
few days ago. He left the room with the
light still burning, intending to go back
Immediately He was. however, prevented
from doing so at the time. and did not
actually go back for two days. When he
again went to his dark room. he was just
on the point of lighting a match and of
entering whensh he detected the odor OF
gas On investiga tion he found the gas
light had gone out and the room was flied
with gas. Had he not noticed the odor of
gas. but had lighted match. as had been
his custom. before entering the room,
there is no doubt to the consequences.
There would have been an explosion with
loss of property by fire, and probably also
loss of life. This same citizen writes that
last winter it was common occurrence
for all the lights to fluctuate and finally
60 out entirely.
From Another Citizen.
A third citizen of Takoma Park writes
December s, 1908, to the Gas Company:
Our gas has gone out every day at about
o:30 pm. for the last seven days. l have
complained repeatedly to the gas COM
pany. This unsatisfactory condition has
existed since last October Still another
citizen writes: 1.-The gas lights in the
room and oven have repeatedly gone out
while being used. This to the great dam
ger of every one concerned, for ii fire.
quently happened that one light or one
burner would go out while the other did
not. Had 1t not had immediate attention,
it would have automatically set off an
explosion Another of our citizens
writes: Frequently the gas when in use
will go out. and constant watchfulness is
required to turn off the jets when this
occurs" An officer of the Bliss Electri-
cal School says: Il distinctly remem-
Der two occasions in October when the
flow of gas ceased entirely about pm
AMI after complaining about the leak of
gas later in the night, says: Il had sew
eral times before noticed the light as being
bad late at night on my retiring and had
complained about it" Another gentle
man writes: ''It is almost impossible to
goes out. thereby endangering both life
and property.
These cases are not isolated ones,
but are quite frequent in Takoma
lumbia and in Maryland. The fol-
lowing taken from another letter
will show to what dangers We are SUBJ
jected nearly every day: ION one Occa-
sion when the gas went out entirely
number of jets were lit. Our cook failed
to turn off one, and when the gas came
on again this one was not noticed by the
cook and she lit other jets in the room.
A serious accident was prevented by my
wife. who, entered the kitchen q few
minutes later and detected the odOr of
the gas. On November % similar in
cident occurred Qhis time the burner in
the oven went out and was unnoticed for
some time). Within the last two months
the gas has gone out entirely several
times" One Of our Oldest residents writes:
I'VE have numerous gas jets going in my
house, self-liShting, and they are contin-
ually going out, and nothing but the strong
smell Of gas escaping warns us of the
fact. l consider the present condition of
things extremely dangerous. We have
score Of such complaints. and there are
many more, who are suffering these in
convenences and are exposing themselves
to danger to life and property who would
also complain did they but have the op-
portunity.
Lighting Of Street Lamps.
Complaints have also been entered con-
corning the larger size of bills under this
regime of low gas pressure, and IA very
serious violation Of the street-light regu-
lations has been noticed, viz: That up
to about 8 pm. the street lamps are so
poorly lighted that they afford very little
protection. This is of course due to the
low gas pressure.
Now. gentlemen, when it is realized
that on the very evening preceding the
fire which destroyed the Bliss Electrical
School the gas pressure was so low in
Takoma Park that the gas lights are
known to have gone out. and that on
many occasions the lights did actually
become extinguished in the Bliss school
itself (before the fire., one can easily see
hot lit-Jrn in II.