232 



FIRST COUNTY PAEK SYSTEM 



such request. The rule was not enforced. All the 

 old points in the controversy were gone over; a few new 

 new^ones were brought out. Mr. Atwater protested against 

 the consideration of the ordinance on the ground "that the 

 statutory number of consents of property owners fronting 

 on the avenue had not been filed." H. H. Hall, in address- 

 ing the City Council with much earnestness, said that it 

 made his "blood boil, as a citizen of this town, to see the 

 representatives of that corporation stand up here and snap 

 the whip over you." The proceedings of the traction com- 

 pany are "a disgrace to the Christian State of New Jersey,^^ 

 he declared, and he said that he would "rather continue to 

 walk twelve minutes to Main street, than to barter away the 

 sacred rights of this city, and give away a perpetual fran- 

 chise which, when your children read of your action, will 

 make them hide their faces in shame." G. E. Howe said: 

 "There is no possibility of parkways if we surrender the 

 only two avenues left." 



AS TO THE FRAJTCHISE. 



Counsel James B. Dill held that "the gentlemen inter- 

 ested have had five years to build a parkway, but up to the 

 present time we have only a verbal parkway." He denied 

 that the perpetual franchise applied for was perpetual, or 

 that there was anything properly in the way of using the 

 old "consents." Arthur Baldwin, a lawyer, joined in this 

 demagogic argument for class distinction, and, with much 

 vehemence, asked: "Who is going to use these parkways? 

 Will those who are away three months in the summer? 

 How is the man wdio is compelled to stay at home to get the 

 benefit of the parks ? He must walk," — thus perverting the 

 fact that parkways, hke the parks, are for all the people, 

 the great majority of whom, remaining at home, all the 

 more require such places for recreation. 



No action was taken by the City Council that evening, 

 but it was freely predicted that the members had, before the 

 hearing, become fully converted to the interested corpora- 



