Show AS TO SIDEWALKS At its next regular meeting on Tuesday evening the council will in all probability pass ordinances providing for the laying of pavements on certain sidewalks Various materials are to be employed those named in the bills being stone fagging asphalt and brick As to the first named there will probably be no objection There will certainly be none if the propertyowners I are able to pay for the improvement Flagging Flag-ging will cost a good deal more than the other materials but the first cost will not be taken into account by the farsighted progressive taxpayer for he knows what flagging is knows how i will last knows that it will be on the sidewalk and in good condition long after he has passed to his final account and knows that the original cost is practically the whole cost He knows that within a year he will not be called upon to go down into his pocket to pay for repairs that his sidewalk will not be broken rough and uneven full of holes and an unsightly nuisance generally I from any cause a slab becomes slightly displaced dis-placed it is a matter of a few minutes and no expense to fix it in position As t the other materials proposed if the I propertyowners are wise they will reject t I f 1 them To do so will not argue that the taxpayers tax-payers are nonprogressive snd opposed to paved sidewalks It will be simply an assertion as-sertion of wisdom We do not proclaim rton against asphalt and say that i cannot be I well laid or that it will not make a good sidewalk we do assert however that wherever tried hereabouts it has proven a miserable failure and in most instances it is little short of a nuisance I was laid in Ogden and the people are ashamed of it while those who put it down confess that it is not a success The experience of Provo is not much better The patches which have been laid in this city are anything any-thing but encouraging I is possible to I make an attractive substantial walk of as phaltum but until there has been a practical I cal demonstration of the fact taxpayers ought not to be required to pay for experiments ments I asphalt shall be employed the contractors ought to be held in bonds to keep the walk in repair for at least five years in which event we dont believe there would be many responsible bidders for the work so little confidence is there in the material As for brick let us hope there will be a unanimous protest against their use every time they are proposed There never was a brick pavement which remained in a sightly and reputable condition for any length of time Brick walks have been laid in Omaha in Chicago in Philadelphia in New York and in other cities and they have been invariably condemned by the public and by the propertyowners The best of them become a nuisance in a short timn nnHf tVrtv fivft Imnt in nnvfrVlinir HkG nnt 0 tv 0 repair they are a source of constant expense ex-pense soon becoming more costly than firstclass stone flagging Propertyowners will be wisa if they insist in-sist upon good pavements or none Dont be driven Into the practice of false economy as the acceptance of the cheap makeshifts which the council may attempt to foist upon you in the name of progress |