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Show After having been rebuked by the mayor for his unjustifiable and extraordinary interference in the Brigham street paving, City Engineer George W. Riter rushed to the council with a communication, which is a bundle of persiflage, in which, however, the engineer succeeds in suggesting sug-gesting that he be "absolved" of responsibility in the Brigham street paving affair. It would have been just as well for Mr. Riter's standing in the official cabinet of the mayor had the letter not been written. His plea to be absolved of responsibility respon-sibility is quite as absurd as his original offense of destroying the Brigham street stakes and quite as laudable as his constant harrassing of the contractor con-tractor and board of public works, to the detriment of the improvement and at needless expense of several thousand dollars to the city. The mayor's elimination of the engineer as a factor in this paving business in itself "absolved" him of "responsibility," "re-sponsibility," and was at the same time such a reproof re-proof as would have brought forth a resignation from probably any other city official had he been similarly humiliated. As a defense of his department depart-ment and a tentative attack on Chairman Wall of the board of public works, the city engineer's letter is puerile, if not pitiful. It would certainly seem that under the circumstances, he should have resigned or permitted his official chastisement to go unheeded. Meanwhile, in the absence of his former foolish and expensive interference, the Brigham street paving has progressed almost to completion, and to the satisfaction of abutting property owners and taxpayers generally. The whole affair suggests the advisability of curtailing the city, engineer's operations so that his official work, at least under the present regime, shall be purely clerical. |