ELECTRIC-POWER PROPOSALS.—THE MAYOR’S SPECIAL PLEADING.

Evening Star, Issue 11455, 24 January 1901, Page 4

ELECTRIC-POWER PROPOSALS.—THE MAYOR’S SPECIAL PLEADING.

TO TtTfc edit on. -And it. came to pass that the. chief ruler of the city sent for his advisers; among others his henchman, the electrical expert. And to him he said : “ .Mr good man, go thou and take counsel of the chief scribes of the city. Find my timekeeper and also my nocturnal astronomer, and advise with them. Then seek thee out ‘ A Conceited Man,’ ‘a dangerous man named Coughtrey,’ who troubleth me very much, and when thou findcst him smite him hip and thigh ; smash up his quotations and figures. Be strong in thy attack on the 1.-ttei, because thou knowest how dangerous such things are in the hands of the 3inexperienced ; for are they not tike unto the nail of the com-thrcsher, or even unto the stockrider’s thong in the hands of those who have not been used to them. Call the people around thee whilst thou dealest with him severely, with all thy might and main, throw dust in his eyes and in the eves of the pcaple; and call aloud and still louder so long as thou vanquished him, for I want peace in the city. For have I not specially favored thee and thine, and are not better things in store for thee? Therefore check thou his evil tidings, for even to-day irumor reached me ‘that this impracticable, troublesome, and dangerous man ’ doth make out that what I said to the people, about the municipal tramways of the United Kingdom (of which I in “a weak moment cited Glasgow to be a typical instance j not that 1 used the word typical, but I led my people to believe so) ‘is not so. This ‘stirrer up of discord’ is now spreading throughout the lengd and breadth of the land that I forgot to state that of the forty-one tramways belonging to local authorities only six were worked by them, and of these six one was a questionable success and the other five were rank failures. Then be dou diligent, I pray thee, in combating these evil sayings, for have I not pledged my word to make ihiS matter a. perfect blessing to the city, a replenisher of onr local finances; and art dou not also bound up with me?—for if 1 fall thou fullest too.’’—l am, etc., Mrj.LKN' CoTiGHTnr.r. January 23.