THE PARKWAYS 181 
TRACTION COMPANY'S FRANCHISE, 
The change in control of the county avenues from the 
Essex Road Board to the Board of Freeholders was, as re- 
gards the manipulation by the corporations, a change in 
name and party shadow only. The substance of corporate 
dictation remained the same. In October, 1894, the Free- 
holders granted to the Consolidated Traction Company a 
perpetual blanket franchise for Park avenue in Newark, 
East Orange, and Orange, Bloomfield avenue, and Freling- 
huysen avenue. The Call, in its next issue, characterized 
this action as completing “the surrender of the Road Board 
highways to the street railroads.” The prodigal liberality 
of that “surrender” to the traction company of that most 
valuable grant of public property was, and is, amazing. 
The scheme was defeated on a technicality in the courts the 
same year, 1894. 
In like manner, the East Orange Township Committee 
had, on May 1, 1891, given the Rapid Transit Street 
Railway Company an equally favorable perpetual fran- 
chise for Central avenue from the Newark terminus 
to the Orange line. This was before the company’s 
lines were constructed in Newark; hence, prior to 
the leasing of that short line to the Consolidated Traction 
‘Company, as was afterward done, at a clear profit to the 
‘promoters and owners of “a round million of dollars.” The 
Rapid Transit finances were not then—1891— in very flush 
condition. It was largely a paper company, organized to 
build and equip the road from the sale of bonds, and with- 
out the investment of much money in promotion or con- 
struction. The company was advised that the franchise 
could be extended, or a new franchise had “at any time,” 
in East Orange, and Thomas Nevins promised the same 
result in Orange. The company for once failed to recog- 
nize the uncertainty of (franchise) human events, or to 
appreciate “a good thing when they had it,” and the fran- 
chise was, therefere, allowed to lapse, and the rails, which 
