NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
» AWEEXY-JOURNAL DEVOTED-T0-THE:-BEST: INTERESTS-OFTHENORTHSHORE 
Vol. III. 
THE CAUSES FOR 
RATE LEGISLATION 
Charles Stedman Hanks tells 
Why the Railroads Oppose 
it, in an Interesting Address 
before the North Shore Hor- 
ticultural Society last night. 
Charles Stedman Hanks of Man- 
chester and Brookline, spoke before 
the members of the North Shore 
Horticultural society in their hall last 
evening on rate legislation, one of the 
most important of the national issues 
now before the people. Mr. Hanks 
said in part: ‘The object of rate 
legislation now before Congress has 
not to do primarily with rebates and 
discriminations to favored shippers, 
or with the right of the railroads to 
charge more for short hauls than for 
long hauls, or with their right to give 
preferences to special localities by 
making lower freight rates to those 
places, or with their right to make 
differential rates, so called, by which 
any particular class of goods shall 
have lower rates. 
“These are phases of the questions 
concerning which laws have already 
been made prohibiting such practices, 
— the purpose of the present legisla- 
tion being, first, to enact a law so 
that passenger and freight rates must 
be just and reasonable not only to the 
public but to the owners of the roads 
and second, a law which shall be so 
framed that when arate is declared 
to be unreasonable a new rate can be 
substituted which will go into effect 
at once without the cost and delay of 
legal preceedings which prohibits to 
smal] shippers recourse to our 
Courts. It is not, however, the pur- 
pose of the legislation to have the 
government, or a commission appoint- 
ed by the government, fix definite 
rates but to determine through a 
commission whether a rate made by 
No. 3 
{Continued on page 5, 1st column] 
MANCHESTER, MASS., SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1906 
Three Cents 
BIG FIRE IN 
MANCHESTER» 
Pulsifer’s Block, the Finest Building in Town, destroyed by Fire 
Thursday Night. 
Several Business Concerns Burned Out. 
at about $50,000. 
The most disastrous fire that has 
visited Manchester in the last 25 
years was that of Thursday night 
when Pulsifer’s block, one of the 
newest and finest buildings in town, 
was burned. The total loss to the 
building and various concerns, at first 
estimated at about $70,000,is now 
conservatively estimated at $45,000 to 
$50,000. 
In the building was located the 
postoffice, the New England telephone 
exchange, the Red Men’s club, the 
NortH SHORE BREEZE, Manchester 
Cricket, Geo. E. Willmonton, all of 
which suffered a total loss as far as 
quarters are concerned. There were 
also Smith’s Express Co.’s office ; Bul- 
lock Bros., grocers; James Nazarro, 
barber ; Harry S. Tappan, dry goods ; 
Semons & Campbell, provisions, all of 
PULSIFER’S BLOCK, 
fe Las 
Post Office and Telephone Exchange and 
Total Loss estimated 
whom suffered loss, all but the last 
named being forced out of the 
building. 
The fire was the most disastrous 
and stubborn to fight the firemen have 
been called upon to battle for many 
years. Starting a little before 9 
o’clock it was not subdued till after 2 
o’clock and the firemen worked on it 
till daylight next morning. In fact, at 
6 o’clock it broke out again, but the 
blaze was quickly put down. 
The origin of the fire is a mystery, 
though it is thought to have started 
in the boiler room which is located in 
the very heart of the structure, and 
around which the fire seemed to 
center. It was discovered by Frank 
Martin, who was in the Red Men’s 
club room at the time, with Ralph 
Stanley, Herbert Shaw and Thomas 
MANCHESTER, DESTRQYED BY FIRE. 
