Year: 1869

The Gas Menopolies-A Change Wanted.


The committee Of the Legislature appointed
by resolution of Mr.. p. Mitchell to look into
the affairs Of the gas companies is eliciting
some very curious facts relative to the man
agement of these gigantic monopolies. The
general tenor Of the evidence shows that the
companies are realizing enormous profits and
that the gas consumers have really no rights
which the monopolies consider themselves
bound to respect. Moreover, this testimony Of
the officials representing the companies is
given with brazen efrontery which is quite
in keeping with the general disregard of all
rights that the public are supposed to enjoy
in their dealings with these concerns, which,
the chairman Of the committee has very pro-
perly said, are not private establishments, but
institutions owing their existence to statutory
law and enjoying their privileges by the will
of the people represented in the Legislature,
and, therefore, under the control of the State
government The witnesses examined SO far
on the part of the gas companies have not
attempted to deny that their profits are exor-
bitant, that they can afford to pay fifty per
cent dividends on the stock, and that the value
of fifty dollar share in some Of the compa-
MES has gone up as high as q hundred
and fourteen and two hundred dollars.
The profits realized on the manufacture Of
gas are demonstrated by the evidence Of the
president of the Harlem Company that the gas
costs only $l 30 per thousand feet, while the
charge to the consumer is SO so per thousand
feet. The president Of the Manhattan Gas
Company swears that there is no clause in the
law under which his company transacts busi-
ness to protect the consumer or to restrict the
company from charging any price they may
choose to fix upon the gas furnished. Com
plants have been laid before the committee
that the gas bills Of consumers have been dis
proportionately increased from month to
month without any rational cause. In one
case it is sworn that gas bill of between six
teen and seventeen dollars, which the con-
sumer regarded as q fair charge, advanced
next month to seventy-one dollars, and the fol-
lowing month to one hundred and FIVE dollars,
while he was using the same number Of
burners in his private dwelling in each
Of these months. No explanation was
offered by the company except that the meter
was out of order, and that they were willing
to make compromise. Now, as to this
question Of the regularity of meters,
an official of one of the companies
swore that he found hundred meters
having the seal Of the inspector upon them
and guaranteed as perfect which did not
register at all. The meter, therefore, cannot
be regarded as safeguard to the consumer,
and yet it is the only test which the companies
will acknowledge in measuring the quantity Of
gas supposed to be consumed.


This investigation renders the fact apparent
that the only way to secure the public fair
supply Of gas at fair rates is to take the manu-
facture of that article into the hands of the
State or city government and revoke the char
ters Of the gas companies altogether In this
way we would be furnished with good gas at
one-half the present price. As the gas COM
panies are now conducted their business is no
the railroad monopolies and the ferries, and
they are intolerable enough. We hope that
when the committee now in session here has
fortified itself with all the testimony it can
procure it will report to the Legislature some
plan whereby the manufacture of gas for the
supply Of the people and the Corporation lamps
can be taken out Of the hands Of the present
outrageous monopoes and transferred to some
authority which can control it for the better
protection of the public.