Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-03-24
GAS TESTIMONY TECHNICAL
DEFENSE TRIES TO SHOW DIS
CREPANCY IN TESTS. =
Chief Justice Clabaugh Administers
Rebuke to Experts Retained by
District of Columbia.

Chief Justice Clabaugh administered
rebuke to the experts retained by the
District of Columbia in the trial in which
the District is endeavoring to obtain
penalties for certain defections which the
authorities allege were discovered in the
gas furnished by the gas companies in
the summer of 1907. DR.. Love. chief gas
examiner of the city of New York. was
on the stand for the defense. His testi-
mony was along technical lines and at
some of the answers he gave the experts
sitting alongside Assistant Corporation
Counsel Stephens smiled and bent their
heads toward one another in comment.
r. Ross Perry. counsel for the defense,
at last objected very strenuously to the
matter. He said:
IF the court please. / do not think 1t
right or proper that the experts sitting
with the counsel should indulge in any
demonstration at the witness answers.
no matter what they think
To which Chief Justice Clabaugh re-
Piled:
That is perfectly correct. / have no
ticed all through the trial that the gentle
mon have been smiling and commenting
at times. and had it not been for the fact
that their backs are turned to the jury /
would have spoken of it long ago
Today's Testimony Technical.
The testimony today was purely tech
nical, the effort of the defense being
mainly directed to show that there is a
discrepancy in the test for candlepower in
gas as prescribed by law and the method
adopted by the leading gas experts. The
principal witness this morning was Alfred
E. Forstall, consulting engineer and
gas expert of New York. He said that
the method of measuring candlepower
prescribed by law is not the best and that
candles are not necessary part of the
Bunsen photometer which the gas exam
liner uses in his official tests and were
not in 1907.
When asked what candlepower meant
in 1907 he replied:
ut meant the average amount of light
given by any numler of standard candles
and was defined by the bureau of stand
ards as bearing certain relation to
standard lamp in its possession" He
went on to tell how the bureau of stand
ards lamp operated
1nterjects Horsepower.
Mr.. Perry tried to elucidate the subject
TO the jury by introducing the matter of
horsepower, asking if horsepower meant
the work that any given horse could do.
After little brush between him and Mr.
Stephens, who said he could not see what
horses had to do with candles, the court
excluded that part of the testimony
Then Mr.. Perry went back to the days
of candlesticks and got the witness to
state that from the earliest times candles
have been more or less unsatisfactory
because Of the fact that wicks go wrong,
and the wax melts unevenly. ending by
declaring that the methods used in test
ing gas by T.. G. Runyon the United
States gas inspector in Washington. were
not the best.
Mentions Possibility of Error.
Mr.. Forstall made the statement that
Mr.. Munyon's tests might have errors
as large as one candle power. and also
said that he did not think Mr.. Runyon's
were near enough to accuracy to be
used in asking penalties In other words,
the defense succeeded in having expert
testimony introduced to discredit the
records on which the suit was based by
the District.
AS a perfect instrument for the meas
uring of the candle power of gas light.
the witness mentioned the instrument
known as the Lowe JET photometer.
This is the instrument in use by the gas
companies here, and on which the assist
ant corporation counsel made an attack.