USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Town annual reports of the several departments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1881 > Part 7
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And this COMMISSION will not object to the transit and removal of said house through Cedar Street, because of possible injury to Shade Trees, with the distinct understanding that the supervision of the Highway Commissioner conferred or imposed by the Board of MAYOR and ALDERMEN shall be con- strued as requiring him to guard the Shade Trees along the route of removal from being lifted or harmed. And this, - not that the COMMISSION OF PUBLIC GROUNDS have any desire to shirk from or evade a duty ; - but because one " supervision ' should be enough.
I subscribe myself, Very Truly,
EDWARD W. LINCOLN,
Chairman."
" COMMISSION OF PUBLIC GROUNDS, Worcester, Mass., Dec. 3, A. D. 1881. To FRANK P. GOULDING, EsQ., City Solicitor :
DEAR SIR: - Your opinion, as City Solicitor, which I formally invited, upon the matter of the jurisdiction over the Shade-Trees in the Public Streets, was duly received; and I beg to thank you for the promptness with which it was rendered.
Lucid and conclusive as it is, and of course satisfactory in so far as it sus- tains the general position maintained by this COMMISSION, you will pardon me for the suggestion that your recognition of the exclusive control over the public Shade-Trees, claimed by myself in behalf of the COMMISSION OF PUBLIC GROUNDS, is founded upon a Municipal Ordinance, rather than upon the Charter of the City, whence I am pleased to derive it. That Charter vests the ' sole care, superintendence and management of the Shade-Trees standing and growing upon the Streets' in a COMMISSION OF PUBLIC GROUNDS; whose method of election, and manner of performing their functions, are particularly defined. In the same Charter is to be found the only warrant for the existence of a CITY COUNCIL. The specific point that I make, is, that the sole care, superintendence and management conferred by the Charter,-in other words, the jurisdiction of the COMMISSION OF PUBLIC GROUNDS ;- cannot be limited, enlarged, or diminished by any power inferior to that whereby it was originally delegated.
You may think that no immediate issue requires a decision of that point. I desire to present it to you distinctly, however, for your consideration at
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leisure ; and may be allowed to express the hope that a solution of the ques- tion, should it at any time become imperative, may emanate from the same source as that wherefrom the City now wisely elects to obtain its legal direc- tion and guidance.
Believe me, very Respectfully and Sincerely,
EDWARD W. LINCOLN, Chairman."
Their number is not now so large,-who will be swift to accuse the Chairman of partiality; or to assume, even if blood is thicker than water, that he will therefore forget his duty and violate his official oath.
Yet it would appear but reasonable that some definite rules should be established, to govern this whole class of cases, here- after. For instance,-a requirement that any building, to be moved, shall be so reduced, by subdivision, as to bear a certain proportion to the width of the streets through which it has to pass. That proportion is of easy determination in each case, which would then stand upon its own merits. And the privilege of occupying the streets, to the exclusion of everything else, is surely worth some little expenditure and sacrifice. Of course,- conditions are worth nothing,-whether prior or subsequent,- unless they are enforced. " How goes it, Dean ?" " Well, it goes !" may do for a salutation among hail-fellows. As official " supervision," in discharge of duty, it may also serve to point a moral.
The hard but inevitable strife with corporations has not yet come to a head. Yet the Chairman notes its swift approach
" With that stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel."
By sufferance of the City Council, Telegraph and Telephone Companies have invaded the City, during the last year; lopping the limbs, or felling the trunks, of trees, indiscriminately, as best suited their immediate purpose. And despite precaution, pro- test, or direct complaint at the Police Office, the aggressor triumphs ;- the sufferer remains without redress. The Republi- can must not alienate, nor offend : his party might be weakened should anybody take (in this matter-spoil ?) umbrage. The
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Democrat will not squeak,-for his own sake, not his party's ; that, long since, was " fast-bound in misery and iron." And still, though the day of reckoning may not be far off,-the COMMIS- SION OF PUBLIC GROUNDS are sorely tempted ; when told by the City Marshal of some newer mutilation and wreck which he observes on the road from Paxton and overlooks in the repose of his office ; to cry out with him of old,-" How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation ?" " One generation passeth away and another generation cometh." But when it is here, although those who longed for it were not spared to hail the dawn,-neither wealth, nor lust, nor principalities, nor power, shall longer offend. The reign of Astræa, for which the blind giant has hitherto groped in vain, shall recommence ; and-brightest of Northern Lights ! the aspect, prospect, and retrospect of the popular demagogue shall fade away in a continually receding illusion !
In the Report of the COMMISSION for A. D., 1880, the Chair- man assumed the role of a prophet :-
" And the Seer notes, also, that in such, not remote, future, the Law of Eminent Domain has received a new and enlightened application. Whereby large and pure streams of water are no longer suffered to run to waste over mill-wheels, but are stored up and retained for the myriad domestic uses of the great communities that have hived along their course. The superior necessity dominates the less. The factory must avail itself of the more modern power of steam. For the aggregated inhabitants, the people, cannot consent to be fleeced, in a perennial tribute, for every drop of an indispensable element that shall, can, or ever may, fall from propitious skies. Some rights or titles are conces- sions-vested indeed, and properly enough matters of bargain and sale : being also contingent upon bankruptcy. Other some are imprescrip- tible ; a portion of the popular prerogative, or sovereignty ; and there- fore, if ever alienated, lapsed, or derogated from, liable to be resumed at will. And, of these latter, is the title to the waters of the Black- stone ; which, finding their sources in the pellucid fountains that flow from Asnebumskit, at an elevation commensurate with our necessities, descend a gentle but continuous declivity, to mingle with the village excrement and wool-yelk held in solution by Kettle Brook."
The theory that streams shall be arrested at their fountains, and compelled to serve human necessities, may not be acceptable to the few who have checked the current below, and constrained it to grind their private grist. But it is a theory based upon an
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absolute Public Want, and therefore of inevitable acceptance. Unless there are reasons of geographical convenience and prox- imity, that may better answer the demands of Millbury ; there can be no doubt that, ere long, that thriving town must become one of our suburban Wards ; if in no other way she can gain the right to draw from the Reservoirs that will constitute' of Tatnuck Brook, a continuous and sufficient basin. The surveyors, of Worcester, find that the height of the Holden Reservoir, raised fifteen (15) feet above its present level, would be 735.30 feet above mean tide-water. That Reservoir, thus enlarged, is com- puted at a capacity of One Billion Gallons (1,000,000,000). It is also found that the overflow of the pond on the " privilege " of the Wire Mill at Quinsigamond Village, is 438.24 feet above the mean sea level. It will be seen that there is an almost precipi- tous fall, in a very few miles, through a valley that would appear to have been created for the precise purpose of retaining Water. If it would not answer to buy out and flood South, and New, Worcester, we might content ourselves with the level of the Loring Coes- Hardy pond, at 488.6 feet elevation ; and the head, thus gained, would start the shingles from any roof in Millbury, if not from the scurf of its inhabitants.
In this matter of Water,-fons et origo,-is the source whence to derive it. The fountains, springs, living streams, are to be found, as they might have been years since, had not men been wilfully blind. And there are also, for miles, acclivities and declivities,-the slopes of the eternal hills,-strong enough to withhold an ocean and clean enough to ensure against pollution. The only doubt of the writer is, not that the wit of the Worcester County man cannot invent an adequate system of dams : but whether penuriousness in the shire-town, or elsewhere, may not prefer to serimp rather than to secure. There are few who share his enthusiasm in reference to the infinite possibilities of Tatnuck Brook. But his faith is implicit, that, the work of man not fail- ing, nor falling short ; the Valley of the Tatnuck, between the slopes of Asnebumskit and Stone-House Hill, and thence down- ward 247.24 feet, can store up more than a sufficiency of water to supply the legitimate uses of a moiety of the Towns in Massa- chusetts along and adown the Blackstone. The other towns
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will,-the writer without positive knowledge, thinks that they can ; meet their necessities, as they arise, from other and inde- pendent sources of supply.
In this vision of the future, the Mill " Privilege" disappears. Aquâ-facture dies, and yet lives : it ceases to turn wheels, - exc mero motu ; - but, heated and compressed, it's forces impel machinery, make fortunes, nor mar neighborhoods. The dam subsides, the brook ripples on, industry prospers, and no man is- worse off. The pipe or conduit, whichsoever is preferred, conducts water from the Apennines to Rome : perhaps in this day and generation we should say from Asnebumskit to Mill- bury and Tasseltop. But the Cloaca Maxima is never diverted from the Tiber.
The doctrine of a resumption of the streams is revolutionary - is it ? Yet Worcester - whether City or County - is not apt to be scared by the dicta or rescripts of prerogative. If revolutionary, the revolt is in the interest of the general welfare. To allow Spencer, Milford, Clinton, Westborough ; - aye, and sooner than they now realize, Millbury ! with her neighbors adown the Blackstone; to furnish themselves with water nor suffer from thirst: because, forsooth, one or a dozen pioneers captured a mill " privilege " in a foray upon a new continent, nor lost it by stress of weather on the middle passage, by gravitation, or by surfeit of tariff.
The annals of personal liberty, in this Commonwealth, nar- rate that a poor negro, suing for the absolute rights of man- hood, without regard to color, race, or previous condition of servitude, had them established by his counsel, - a jurist from Worcester.
The history of individual freedom of conscience, in Massa- chusetts, if ever truly written, will date the emancipation of her " plain people," from the pitiless rule of a hierarchy ; that compelled a man to pay for the support of public worship in the Old South, when he had erected an altar to his God in the New North ; to the untiring labors of that same man, upon whose shoulders were largely heaped the cares of State; the habilitation of a Party ; and, - properly estimating the subse- quent development of the Louisiana Purchase, - the growth
.
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of a continent. But yet he found leisure to build a conduit from the Hermitage Pond ; to drain Beaver Brook at its flood ; and to dyke, for the purposes of irrigation, that stream, and the Blackstone in Quinsigamond Village. It might almost seem that it should not have been left to the grandson of him - perhaps the most remarkable man, in all respects, that Worcester ever had in her service, to proclaim in this way his praises. As Scholar, or Jurist, his eulogy would not be attempted. But the Farmer, or Engineer, who can cultivate or survey the Black- stone intervale, below the wire mill at Quinsigamond Village, without finding permanent traces of what Attorney-General Lincoln had done, well nigh a century since, must be blinder than a mole, or than a professional expert in sewage as it affects the public health.
And perhaps therefore it happened naturally that when a question was raised in the Great and General Court, by some favorites of especial " privilege " as against the common ease- ment ; whether the Divine Law of Gravitation should be suspended or set aside and the man-made order of artificial dams, mill settling-ponds, and stagnating water, substituted; the flame that had smouldered so long burst forth into new life :
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
The facile concession of liability ; or the readier assumption that a liability would be admitted because claimed; induced the preparation of the subjoined dogina, which was soon after published at the suggestion of the gentleman * to whom it had been addressed :-
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS UPON THE PETITION OF C. D. MORSE, et als., TO "REGULATE THE DISCHARGE OF SEWAGE INTO THE BLACK- STONE."
Inevitable necessities attach to and burden human nature. What shall become of such excreta ? Nature solves the problem by a re-solu- tion. The snow, and rain-fall; the swollen brook, and over-flowing river; unobstructed ; bear with them to the ocean, simultaneously, the nuisance and the difficulty of dealing with it.
I say - unobstructed. The natural water-course scours itself. If detritus lodges against a casual obstacle, forming a bar; the next
* Frank P. Goulding, Esq., City Solicitor.
11
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flood will cut out a new channel. But a succession of dams, such as the Blackstone is vexed withal, stifles the current and stagnates the very water, - rotting out its life.
It may have been essential, ab initio, to foster manufactures even to the temporary surrender of our streams. But, -A. D. 1881, the Tariff may be trusted for stimulus, and steam substituted for the intermittent and confessedly inadequate forces of Water. Class legislation has exhausted its possibilities : the People would resume their own!
Man can only quench his thirst at the fountain-head. Whatsoever impurities are cleansed from his daily walk, or occupation, are borne, when not impeded, straight to that ocean - whose salt has lost no savor. Stored up at the fountain-head water furnishes sustenance for humanity. When man has done with it, it is carried under the Provi- dence of God to form new continents ; - the prospective Utopias of future republics.
Nothing is simpler than the early usurpation of water-courses. Corn must be ground; and the whole neighborhood profited by the grist. Logs must be sawed; or an entire settlement go houseless. The dam once built, - there was no need to search far for the site of the woollen-mill when the merino had found a congenial home on our pleasant hills.
But old things have passed away, and all new things should con- form to the altered conditions. The rights, or privileges, of a few have become inconsistent with the existence of the many. A great city has grown up, - at the head-waters of the Blackstone: and the calls of its nature for obvious relief are too imperative to be dis- regarded. Regulate the discharge of sewage into the River, if you will ; by providing that dams shall no longer impede the Water-ways ! Let not man longer countervail the goodness of God for his own selfish purposes ! Revoke all special privileges or concessions in derogation of Common Right ! that the People may once more enjoy their own. It is not a military necessity as yet, like that which unshackled the African. Is it hopeless to expect that the prescience of the General Court may settle the question ; ere, like other matters to whose decision man has proved unequal, it is cast into the scale of the heaviest battalions.
Respectfully submitted,
(by)
EDWARD WINSLOW LINCOLN.
Worcester, Massachusetts, March 2d, A. D., 1881.
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Had it been an object to draw the fire of the monopolists, it was fully achieved by that publication. There was a rush up- stream, into print, and fiercer than the torrent anticipated by the Seer from a demolition of the dams. "Some therefore cried one thing and some another ; " but high over all was resonant the hoarse clamor of a former generation ; which had thriven upon government contracts, and in whose houses a mill " privilege " was ever a "handy thing"; crying out, -" Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth." Puzzle your brains, honest farmers ! Struggle and writhe in the toils that have been woven around you, helpless communities ! The produce of the farms is depreciated by. bounties upon growth, - foreign or remote. Towns and cities gaze with patient stolidity upon the audacious aggression that monopolizes their highways ; occludes their water-courses ; regarding human existence itself but as a virtual survival of the fittest to endure, and to consume ! Never wearied ; but always to be swaddled tightly, in a protective system that will not cease craving to be upheld until thrown upon its own resources and sternly bidden to support itself.
Spasmodic attempts to give away the case of Worcester ; with its fundamental law of gravitation ; are occasionally noticed. Centuries have intervened between the several utterances. But yet it is a present conundrum in Worcester : - Upon what occasion A. D. 1881,
" An angel of the Lord stood in a narrow place, where was no way to Turn either to the right hand or to the left," *
compelling speech in these recent days !
Towards the latter part of Summer, the following note was received :-
[ Copy. ]
" CITY OF WORCESTER.
SEAL.
Executive Department.
Mayor's Office, Aug. 24, 1881.
EDWARD W. LINCOLN, EsQ.
My Dear Sir :-
The matter of the pollution of the Blackstone River, by the sewage of Worcester, has been called to the attention of the
* Vide NUMBERS : Chap. 22, v. 26.
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Legislature by some of the citizens of Millbury. The Legislatare at its last session, referred the subject to the State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity, for investigation and report. The City Government has been requested to furnish the said Board with the opinion of experts and others as to the importance and extent of the evil complained of, and also the best practical method of remedying the same. It is expected that a committee of the Board will give a hearing in Worcester, in the early Autumn to all parties interested in this subject. I would like very much to have you give me your views, in writing, at your convenience, upon the matter :- one that is liable to become of great importance to the City.
Yours Respectfully,
F. H. KELLEY."
It is not possible to do more than enlarge upon propositions heretofore outlined : and volume is of course dilution. Even such opinions might be out of place in this Report ; but for the request of His Honor, the late Mayor; and the further fact that the COMMISSION OF PUBLIC GROUNDS have ever expected that their Broad Avenue, to encircle Worcester, should environ the Northern and Eastern slopes of Mount St. James, descending therefrom gradually into the Village of Quinsigamond.
" A natural water-course is a natural sewer." So it has been ever since the founders of the Civil Law established the doctrine, by absolute demonstration, throughout the channel of the Tiber.
The contention is, that the Law of Nature is immutable : water shall run down and fish run up ! The imprescriptible and inalienable rights of the people are asserted, as against concessions of privilege ; whether at any time meritorious or not, now untimely and unworthy of respect. Streams shall flow, in their natural channels, unimpeded by the art or avarice of man. Obsolete contrivances should give place to later inventions ; steam supplanting water as a motor; dams being not reduced nor palliated by fishways, but absolutely taken down and done away with forever. The water-course, left in its natural channel, unchecked, will clarify itself ;* when clarified, it will become
* The condition of water, whether fluid or in a state of congelation, attracts ever increasing attention. Its clarification by frost, through the long months of Winter, not less than by the motion and friction of a current ordained at the creation, but since denied by private greed, is an element to be computed in the solution of the present problem. Does water when it freezes part with impurities or germs of disease? If, yes? then for a longer portion of the
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stocked once more with abundant fish. And it is declared further, without qualification, and with complete conviction of its truth, that nature supplies species of fish to which human excreta are not only not repellant, or noxious, but that actually thrive upon it, forming wholesome food. Of such are, among others, our native sucker, the imported carp, and strange as. it may seem, the gold-fish. Restrict the discharge of noxious refuse from factories ; as you resume concessions, to their proprietors, of " privileges" that have become wholly inconsistent with the public welfare, or even existence ; and your problem is solved.
year, Nature puts to scorn both the guess-work and pother of "Experts !" Some doctors of science and medicine in the city of New York have lately ex- pressed their opinions upon the question :- " Can ice" (which is water ;- only not fluid), " convey disease?"
An eminent chemist said : " Water during the process of freezing has an unusual power of cleansing itself. It seems to squeeze out all impurities. If you wish to obtain the purest form of acetic acid, you take the ordinary acid and freeze it. Melt the ice so formed and you will find that it has no acid taste. Take salt water, freeze it and melt the ice-you will find that the salt has been squeezed out. Thousands of tons of salt are made in this way. But if you take ice and spray water upon it containing impurities, the frozen spray will contain the impurities still."
Dr. Metcalfe said : "I think river ice is probably pure, because water has such a power of purifying itself. Still, I should imagine that lake ice, particularly that cut in lakes that have only natural drainage emptying into them, would be the best. Ido not think that river ice would be likely to carry germs of disease in it. There is an enormous amount of impure ice cut-that from small ponds, for example, in marshy places-but it is chiefly used for cooling purposes in such places as breweries. I do not think much of it is consumed by people. I imagine that the ice brought by any of the responsible companies would be pure enough for consumption without danger to the consumer."
"The subject," said another well-known physician, " is one of very great importance, and it is one which no man can answer questions upon when they are first asked. They take time to think out. I cannot answer any questions upon the subject now with any definiteness. I know that this sub- ject has attracted the attention of savants in France, and that experiments have been made on the ice cut in the Seine. It is my impression that the re- sult of those experiments was that nothing injurious was found in the ice, but it is a long time since I read about them, and I am not certain. My recollection is that freezing was found to force the germs out of the water in the same way as it forces out salt."
Dr. J. T. Sabine said : " I think that river ice is more apt to be pure than lake ice. In lakes, unless there is a strong current through them, the water is apt to get more or less stagnant. You find enormous masses of confervæ in it as well as animalcula. I should certainly object to ice cut in a part of the river where there were dye works or tanneries, or where the sewage of any great city came in. Still water has a wonderful way of cleansing itself, and I should think it would be quite pure ten miles away from the place where such substances entered it."
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The clear stream, the swarming fish, the pure air of Heaven, a beautiful and bright landscape, a happy people. Per contra,- fewer dams ! of modern structure and profane provocation.
What future do they contemplate for themselves ? these Aqua - facturers ! who resist everywhere efforts to procure adequate and convenient supplies of water ;- who would con- travene Natural Law in a selfish, if absurd, attempt to with- stand the Law of Gravitation ; and who apparently forget that " with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again ! "
These petitioners from Millbury-owners of obsolete " privi- leges,"-assert that they have been sick, at times : and they elect to attribute their ill health to the Worcester sewage. But all think it worse, i. e., the sewage, -the nigher to Worcester. If so, - the chief occupation of Worcester itself; instead of a demand for sash and blinds ; should be the interment of its population. And, considering everything, our last state does not appear to be much worse than our first.
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