TOY OFFICIALS 255 
cision sustaining the validity of the railroad ordinance for 
Central avenue as passed in East Orange, April 28, 1902. 
The opinion was rendered by Justice Collins, who, prior to 
his appointment on the bench, was a member of the law firm 
of Collins & Corbin, and whose partner was a stockholder of 
record of the North Jersey Street Railway Company. 
Chandler W. Riker, and P. Woodruff, as also the counsel 
for East Orange, appeared for the traction company, and 
R. V. Lindabury made the argument for the property owner 
plaintiffs. Although it was shown by the testimony that 
Bishop J. J. O’Connor was not the owner of the cemetery 
property on the avenue at the time he gave a written con- 
sent, and that that consent was necessary in order to con- 
stitute a majority of the frontage owners’ consents, as 
clearly provided by law, the court decided that, in this case, 
“ecclesiastical polity” of the Catholic Church might be sub- 
stituted for legally recorded ownership, and held that the 
ordinance, based upon such consent, was accordingly valid. 
APPEAL TO HIGHER COURT. 
The case was at once appealed. The appeal acted in the 
meantime as a stay or injunction against the traction com- 
pany. Mr. Lindabury advised that, in his opinion, the 
Supreme Court decision referred to could not be sustained 
by the higher court. Efforts were then made to obtain from 
the Park Commission some action or earnest of its repeated 
assurances regarding the main parkways. 
On April 9, 1903, the Joint Committee on Parkways had 
adopted a resolution requesting “the Park Commission to 
officially express to the East Orange City Council that 
board’s repeatedly expressed desire to secure the care, cus- 
tody, and control of Central avenue,’ and appointing a sub- 
committee of three to present the resolution to the com- 
mission. This committee, consisting of H. G. Atwater, J. 
F. Freeman and myself, made the presentment on April 12. 
At that conference, the Park Board gave no suggestion or 
intimation whatever that there had been any change in the 
attitude of the commission respecting the avenue parkways. 
