Appropriating Streets

The duty of a city is always to accept all the land offered for public streets, or any other purpose, aaid to give up none of it. "The foolishness of past city councils in allowing streets to be discontinued or taken up is demoastrated every day, r%ht here in tuis city. N. State st. 3e one ánstance, and there are other instances where in years gone by people have placed their fences out dn the etreet, and fenced in from onO to a half dozen or more feet of land belongdng to the city. As the streets uien Avere oí not much valuei no fuss was made about it. Now 6ome of these streets are main arteries and the land rightfully belongs to the city by deed is in private hands, much to the discomfiture of eitizens ■who are obMged daily to discommode themselves because of the past greediness of others. On E. Ann st., between State and División sts., is a notable cxample. "Une city has a warranty deed of forty feet of Street, and has in its possession only 38 feet. Aud the two feet that lias been stolen froin the city is very much needed for the comfort of hundreds of people who daily travel there and tear clothes on the fences that are pJaced on theitr own street property, or run into the gates opening out and across the narrow sMe walk left for them to travel on- whsich gates are eeldom, if ever olosed. From time to time there has been been am attempt to get somethmg done to remedy the wrong perpetrated upon the Corporation in that Jocality, but there never y et has been found a eufficient quantity of nerve to rigftt the wrong. There is an instance, in the history of his city, wliere a man had to pay upwards of $400 for iinjury to a pedestrian who ran into a gato that opened out across a sidewalk, and was left, as such gates usually are, standing open.