Year: 1873

To The Honorable, the Mayor and A{Clel'-


men of the City Of RnorriNe.


Your Committee on Gas, submit this
their final report for the year 1872


Additional lamp posts to the number OF
twelve have been erected i'll various To-
calitics in the city, and main pipe to the eX-
tent of thirty-six hundred feet, has been
laid down.


The old burners OH all the lamps were
removed early in the year, and new ones
of superior burning qualities substituted,
thereby increasing the light and render
ing the lamps more ServiceabletO the pub
lie, for whose benefit they were erected.


Much more would have been done in
this regard, and pipe laid, and posts erect
ed in portions of the city now without pub
lie lights, but for the unfortunate litiga-
ton in which the Gas Company is now,
and has for more than q year, been invOlv
ed.


Those into whose hands the Company
has temporarily passed in consequence of
intestine troubles, are without general
powers and authority to act and contract
on the part of the Gas Company, an en-
barrassment most seriously felt by your
Committee, and great drawback to much
needed improvements in this department
| of the city government.


Your Committee take pleasure i'll re-
porting, that Cornelius Lucky, ESD, the
| receiver appointed by the Chancery Court,
and now in charge Of the Gas works, and
James Sumerville, Esq, the efficient su
perintendent of the works, have at all
times, SO far as your Committee can Judge,
rendered them all the assistance in their
power, and have manifested Willingness
and desire to aid us to the extent of their
authority as the agents of the Court and
the Company.


| But for the restraining circumstances
surrounding these gentlemen, your Com
mittee believe that much greater improve
ments would have been made in the gas
department of the city and that the rela-
| tlOns between the corporate authorities
and the Gas Company would be much
more satisfactory.


How long the afore mentioned litigation
will stretch into the future, and just how
long it may be to the interest of the Gas
Company to remain in this quasi torpid
condition, but all the while enjoying the
blessings of receiver, and suffering none
of the Inconvenience of the opposite pro-
cess, your Committee are unable to cOnjec-
| ture, and they see no way of escape so in
viting as that heretofore recommended,
viz: the purchase Of the works by the
city under the provision to that effect in
the Gas Company's charter.


Your Committee are persuaded from
I facts and figures before them, some of
which have hitherto been submitted, that
under an economical administration of the
city government, gas could be furnished
to the citizens at cost of not more than
| three dollars per thousand feet.


We have not time, now, to enter into
the particulars of this important move,
but respectfully submit it for specialinves-
tigatiOn by our successors in office, with
the confident belief that the course rec
ommend would result most favorably for
1.-THE whole community.


Your Committee deem it their duty to
call the attention of their constituents,
and the gas consumers of the city of
Knoxville, to the fact that the charter of
the Gas Company restricts the Company
in their charges for gas to the private con-
sumner, to the prices paid by those who
burn gas in other southwestern cities,