Show AGAINST WESTERN UNiON UON The Supremo Court Decides That a City Can Charge Rental for Its Streets WASHINGTON March 6In the case of the City of St Louis against the Western Union Telegraph company the Supreme Court in an opinion by Justice Brewer reversed the decision of the lower court and held to be valid the city ordinance exacting compensation from the company for use of the streets for telegragh poles the charge being 5 on each pole The court holds this was in reality and rental charged for the use of the public streets and that the city had as much right t charge such rental as for use of a room in the city hal There is nothing in the charter of the company exempting it from taxation on the ground that public streets are post roads The court did not pass upon the question ques-tion of the reasonableness of the rate charged as the case coming before in advance ad-vance of an investigation of this point by the lower court Justice Brown based his dissent on the ground that a tax of f5 per pole amounted to 44 per cent of the returned valuation of the companys St Louis property and was unreasonable The court also refused to rehear cases in which the United States and Southern Pacific Pa-cific Railway company and Colton Marble company are parties In these cases the court recently decided against the railroads roads title under its land grant to an immense im-mense quantity of valuable lands in southern California |