THE LAST PRAYER The Dry Bouchers Present Their Final Petition A Most Exhaustive and Interesting Exposition I position of the Situation I 1 It will be remembered that during last summer and fall the air in the vicinity of the dry bench was rent with the t prayers and petitions of the thirsty residents resi-dents who vainly pleaded and petitioned I the City Council for water In order to pacify them the city sages finally determined deter-mined to make a show of doing something some-thing and commenced boring into the t side of Dry Canyon for a subterranean stream that wassupposed to exist there The indignation of the benchers aver the failure of the city to heed their petitions at b last grew so intense that a mass meeting was called and a committee appointed to investigate the matter fully and take such decided action as was deemed advisable ad-visable It is generally understood that this committee waited on President Taylor Tay-lor and petitioned him to interfere in t their behalf but he turned a deaf ear That the committee has not been idle is I shown by the voluminous petitipn presented pre-sented by them tffThe City Council for just treatment in the water question It I is printed in pamphlet form and including includ-ing the report of Chas L Stevenson I civil engineer covers thirtyseven pages The members of the committee were present pre-sent last evening as was also Mr Arthur Brown who has been employed as their attorney The committee commence their report I by stating they were appointed to petition I the Council for a water supply adequate for the needs of the dry benchers and the lands they occupy The committee believed that the failure fail-ure of the Council to act had been owing to its ignorance of the necessity and they had investigated the matter thoroughly and were enabled to give a statement of the principal facts They had also caused a most thorough examination to be made as to the adequacy of the water supply and had engaged the services of Colonel C L Stevenson a civil engineer of long experience They further desire to assure the council that while as taxpayers and citizens citi-zens they have cheerfully paid and still annually pay their pro rata to provide and maintain more than adequate water supplies for other portions of the city from which they derive no benefit they shall respectfully insist that such unjust I discrimination be no longer permitted The committee states that the area of land within the corporate limits that either has no water or a partial supply is 517 acres and this is populated by 2200 persons who depend upon what water they can purloin from City Creek or receive re-ceive once a week during six or seven months of the year from the waste of Emigration Creek eked out by a small quantity furnished from Dry Canyon springs The deprivation of water for irrigation to that part of the city notably the most suitable residence for residences is a hardship in itself that works not only injury in-jury to the owner but a positive loss to the city in no increased value from improvements im-provements and keeps their own lands out of the market If as now the citizen of the North Bench is compelled to pay excessively first to haul water next to be deprived of cultivating his land and still have to pay his proportion of providing pro-viding and maintaining for an excess of water for all other portions of the city it would seem that his part thereof was pretty severely discriminated against by the city government The city canal has cost upwards of 250000 and the city has further paid out 25000 in an endeavor to obtain I artesian water not for the benefit of the I living but specially stipulated to beautify beauti-fy the lands of the dead In a mistaken endeavor to give the Dry Bench some water 5000 > has been expended Damages Dam-ages arising from an excess of water are also annually paid for The excessive damage arising from a Jack of water has not as yet been met When some years ago the petition of a few citizens of the lower wards was made to procure water for the cemeteries their request was cheerfully and rightfully granted The request of 2200 of the citizens citi-zens of the wards absolutely suffering for the want of water we sincerely trust will be willingly acceded to the committee seems to ignore the fact that such request has been made and not acceeded The committee proposes two methods of furnishingthe Dry Bench with water The first is to supply the lands below the Salt Lake Canal therefrom rom and the quantity quan-tity thus released to be devoted to increasing in-creasing the quantity available for flow through the city pipes to those portions of the city lying above the canal level This method will require an outlay of 33000 The second method contemplates the Creation of a reservoir in Little Valley on the east side of City Creek Canyon for storing the surplus water of the creek and drawing upon this basin during the period of low water The committee state the inhabitants they represent constitute onetenth of the I population and the lands to be watered oneeighth of the entire city and close their petition by requesting a speedy hearing The petition is signed by Edward Os borne W H Bywater 0 S Walsh L Greaves W J H Timms Wm Benson and Edgar Howe