CONTEST FOR PARKWAYS CONTINUED 205 
A CANCELLED CONSENT. 
“Do you expect to catch a weasel asleep?” replied one 
who had spoken to me on the subject. “Do you think the 
counsel would go around with a brass band, and a traction 
placard on his back, if he were really doing this business ?” 
said another. I admitted that no such expectations could 
be reasonably entertained; but these were not, under the 
circumstances, pleasant reflections. -I was aware of Coun- 
sel Munn’s action in revoking his former consent to the 
traction company, during the height of the excitement in 
East Orange, in January, 1897. His letter, canceling the 
consent for a railroad he had previously given for more 
than three hundred feet frontage on Central avenue, was 
an autograph letter as follows: 
“To the Township Committee, Township of East Orange: 
“If there is any attempt to use the consent given by 
me several years ago to the application on behalf of the 
Rapid Transit Company for a franchise for its street rail- 
way on Central avenue—as a consent to a new application 
or to any application for such purpose at this time by any 
organization, I hereby give notice of my protest against 
such use. 
“And I hereby withdraw, revoke and annul any and all 
consents heretofore given by me, or by Mary P. Munn, 
whose sole heir at law I am, for the location or building 
of any street railway on Central avenue in East Orange. 
“JosepH L. Munn. 
“January 9, 1897.” 
This revocation was, however, a year prior to the con- 
ference with the Street Committee in Orange, and to the 
“inspired prophecy” just quoted, and of the current rumors 
of Counsel Munn’s real purpose in January, 1898. While 
my term as commissioner had expired in April, 1897, I 
had known much of what was going on in the Park Board 
rooms, and was forced to the conviction that the state- 
