656 PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION J. 



The constant tearing up the pavements for all kinds of purposes, 

 makes our street department very unwilling to grant permits for 

 laying additional conduits, and several times they have been 

 refused altogether. No streets have ever been lighted by 

 electricity here, in fact the whole industry is in a very backward 

 condition, and is likely to remain so, except in the most densely 

 crowded portions of the city, unless some ai-rangement can be 

 made with the city authorities for overhead wires. So much for 

 the experience in Chicago. 



The difficulty from gas explosions has been met with many 

 times, and seems insurmountable where gas is used. At New 

 York men have been suffocated in the man-holes, and in the 

 Western Union Building the escape of gas from the wire con- 

 duits has been almost unbearable. At Detroit an explosion took 

 place last October in the middle of the night in a fire alarm 

 conduit with close man-holes. The man-hole cover was thrown 

 high into the air, the street torn up, and the paving blocks 

 scattered over a distance of eighty feet or more. 



In 1886 an Underground Wire Commission was appointed in 

 New York, and as the result of its deliberations reported that a 

 large conduit be constructed under the streets, and in it all wires 

 and pipes be placed. This report has been adopted by the Muni- 

 cipal authorities, and attempts have been made to oblige all 

 Electrical Companies to agi-ee to place their wires in such a 

 conduit. The Companies, however, do not readily comply — the 

 Telegraph and Telephone Companies especially. Indeed the 

 strongest opposition is shown to the plan, which, so far, has not 

 been carried out. 



I have dwelt so long upon the experience of America because 

 necessity (the mother of invention) has caused more attention to 

 be given to the subject of underground wires there than elsewhere. 

 I find Professor Plumpton, who was a member of the Bi^ooklyn 

 Underground Committee, speaking in October 1886 contemptu- 

 ously of what had been done in the matter in Europe, which he 

 had just visited. It must be remembered, however, that in Europe 

 the question has not been of such urgency as it has in America, 

 owing to the extremely rapid increase in the number of telephones 

 used in the latter country, and the great number of electric light 

 and other wires day by day coming into use in all the chief cities 

 of the United States. In London, it should be remembered also, 

 that the overhead wires are on the roofs of the buildings chiefly, 

 whereas in America they are on poles in the streets. 



It must be admitted, I think, that if a satisfactory system has 

 not been discovered in America, the difficulties surrounding it 

 must be very great indeed. 



In Victoria there has not been very much done towards placing 

 the telegraph, telephone, and electric light wires underground. The 

 Post Office has about two miles each of one hundred wire, and of 



