Year: 1869

prudent merchants and thrifty manu-


facturers to double their original cspi-


tai in twenty years, through patient ia


dustry and judicious management.


Few would contend that for such q res-


son the merchant and the manufac-


turer were sharp dealers and ought


to be compelled to close their establish.
ments. Yet such would be the result OF
the line of argument adopted by the


Mteligencer toward the Gas Company.


The charge of the Intelligencer that
the Gas Company has limited the con-
sumption Of gas in this city hardly
merits consideration. No business man
voluntarily decreases his own trade and
no company can live long which is not
conducted on business principles. The
Island is not supplied with gas just
because it cannot be supplied without
heavy loss. Any practical man looking
at the scattered condition of the dwell.
ings there will see that it will cost as
much in the item of pipe alone to reach
five families upon the Island as to reach
twenty-five in the main part of the city.
The Intelligcneer's allusion to the cost of
laying pipe as comparatively trifing
only shows that those who furnished its
data know not whereof they speak.
The same fact appears in the statement
that were the present limit of gas dis
triDution enlarged "the coke and coal
tar would more than pay for the coal" !"
This is utterly incorrect. Besides that
the coal is but one of many items of
cost in the manufacture of gas. He who
that here lies the chief expense
is vastly mistaken.


Just here it may be as we'll to refer
to those, with whose views the Intelh-
gencer is doubtless familiar, who think
the city could be cheaply and success
fully supplied with gas made out of the
ordinary way, under new plans and
patent rights. Without intending or
desiring to depreciate the value of any
promising invention or to discourage
any jealous protector of new gas, we can
not forget that while the history of gas
records numberless experiments
in all directions seeking to improve
upon or supplant the regular method of
gas making, they have all been either
total failures or such partial successes
as to be unsafe, unreliable, or incapable
of general application. Another fact in
the same connection is that such raids
upon gas companies as the Intelligencer
is now attempting have almost
always been referable to a desire to
aid some new gas project under
the guisepf promoting the public inter.
est. Whether this is true in the pres.
ent case is not, we hope, material to
the discussion.


And now word about meters. The
Intelligencer claims that the meters of
the Wheeling Gas Company ought to be
inspected and tested. This is Just ex-
actly what has been done, in the case of
the meters in use in this city. 1t is true
no paid and possibly incompetent public
official has been employed for the pur-
pose, but in the mandatory from
which these meters were pronnrad, not
one is permitted to 20 into
use without being inspected, tested
and sealed. The American Me-
ter Manufacturing Company sends
out no inaccurate work. In the mat.
ter of reading the meters. it is COM
planned that none but the Gas Compa-
ny's officials are able to determine the
amount of gas consumed. This is also
incorrect. There are persons in this
city, private consumers, who read their
own meters, and who have never yet
uttered complaint as to the inaccura-
cy of their gas accounts. Believing
that when consumers understand this
matter there will be the most perfect
satisfaction, the Company has always
been willing to instruct it's customers,
so as to enable them to read their own
meters. If all could do so, trouble on
this score would cease