| Show A GULPING MACHINE AT a session of the city council held july loth colonel merritt the corporation attorney introduced a bill for anew a new sewer ordinance he explained that the one passed last march was detective defective and that it would be much better to enact ft a fresh one than to patch up that now existing the learned gentleman described the provisions of the pro posed new act after having read ita title mayor scott who was probably familiar with the mea measure gure sug that it would be appropriate to pass it by merely reading its title accordingly the recorder trippingly enunciated the title of the bill the vote which was unanimous was taken and it was presumed that the ordinance was an accomplished fact the validity of this new ordinance under a judicial test would of course depend upon whether the courts would hold it to be competent to go behind the record of the proceeding and inquire into the facts connected with its alleged passage in the event of such an investigation the fact would be disclosed that whatever of merit there was in the measure was not due to the council who so far as an examination of the bill is concerned are in total darkness except it be presumed oye fumed that the title is an exact epitome of its contents our city solons were for the time being in the position of a piece of sewer pipe into which their legal adviser poured his legislative decoction which came out at the other end with all its original constituents in this allusion to the alleged passage of an exceedingly important ordinance affecting an immense amount of property we are not animadverting anim adverting upon its quality as we are as ignorant upon that subject as the council which passed it not having had an opportunity to scrutinize it it may be a wise and effective ordinance the ability of the gentleman who produced it is not brought into question but the ibe exhibition of childlike con in him by the council does not savor of the dignity and ability that ought to belong to an important and presumably deliberative body the spectacle of last evening suggests an interrogatory as to the necessity for the existence of the council stall at all if its acts are to conti continue due to be a matter of thumbs up or down according to the dictum of some one regarded as knowing all that is needful what would be its use it is a matter of regret to fee eee important business of the corporation done in such an unintelligent slipshod and incapable manner the humiliating spectacles which the council occasionally present render the dishonest exclusion of the peoples peopled candidates who were lawfully elected to seats in that body all the more regretful had they been given their places in accordance with judge zanes decision there would have been in the council an element that would have helped to keep it level that body would not then have suggested the picture of a nest of gapingly gulping all that is given them but a disgusted public can only look on and suffer until fraud is eliminated from local politics and more competent men are selected to transact the business of the people |
