COXIEST FOR PAEKWAYS COXTIXUED 205 



A CAXCELLED COXSEXT. 



*T3o YOU expect to^ catch a weasel asleep?" replied one 

 who had spoken to me on the subject. ^'Do yon think the 

 counsel would go around with a brass band, and a traction 

 placard on his back, if he were really doing this business T' 

 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 compan}', 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 ToAvnship 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 

 Eapid 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. Mun-n. 



"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- 



