The Court of Aldermen on Thursday was inundated with peti-
tions praying the Corporation to take the gas supply into its •own hands, complaining of Dr. Letheby's analyses of the noisome vapour now sold, and demanding that the price should be reduced to 3s. per 1,000 feet. The petitioners should not make too much fuss about price. Let the City, or the .board of Works, or anybody who will do it make a grand profit, provided they give good gas. The profit will reduce rates. They must beware, too, of suggest- ing compromises with the Companies. Nothing short of a total extinction of those monopolies will induce the directors to listen to reason. They will evade Acts, laugh at complaints, and defy restrictions, and the only way to cope with them is to be rid of them altogether. They can even now make gas perfectly pure at a cost many times less than the difference between their actual and their legal profit, and they will not do even that.
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