TOY OFFICIALS 



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cision sustaining the validity of tlie railroad ordinance for 

 Central avenue as passed in East Orange, April 28, 1902. 

 The opinion was rendered by Justice Collins, who, prior to 

 his appoiutment on the bench, was a member of the law firm 

 of Collins & Corbin, and whose partner was a stockholder of 

 record of the Xorth Jersey Street Railway Company. 

 Chandler W. Eiker, and P. Woodruff, as also the counsel 

 for East Orange, appeared for the traction company, and 



E. y. 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. 



