The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer

Of the Gas Question, as Presented to an Intelligencer Interviewer by Mr. J. M. Dillon Yesterday

An Intelligencer reporter collided with Mr. J. M. Dillon, Superintendent of the Gas Works, yesterday, and after a little conversation in regard to other matters, asked him about the article in yesterday's papers in regard to himself and the management of the works.

In reply to Browne's questions: "Can Mr. Dillon show that I had anything to do with the recent strike?" "Can he show that I have ever tried to influence any one of his employes to his disadvantage or injury?" Mr. Dillon replied: I have it on the very best authority that Mr. Browne met with my disaffected workmen night after night at the Atlantic engine house and also was seen in conference with some of them at the postoffice corner, Sixteenth and Market streets, and at other points, at various times during the time of the trouble with these men at the works, and subsequently thereto. I would also take occasion to say right here that Mr. Browne's name was not mentioned in my card of the 27th of January, but if the cap fits him let him wear it.

"How about the religious and political phases of the matter, Mr. Dillon, or as Mr. Browne puts it, "my creed and politics?"

"The matter of 'creed and politics' were only mentioned in connection with the name of Mr. Browne, where it is stated in my card that Flaherty was discharged by him, although they were both of the same creed and politics. They were only used incidentally in connection with the quitting of Mr. Flaherty. But since that matter has been sprung let me say here that I never yet interrogated any man that I have hired, in regard to his nationality, creed or politics, but I have been informed that my predecessor did, and was in the habit of asking them: 'From what county in Ireland did you come?' Many Catholics and Irishmen, in fact a large proportion of those employed have been both Catholics and Irishmen, and never yet have I discharged any man on account of nationality, religion or politics. If Mr. Browne was never influenced by such considerations, why was it that so few Protestants were employed about the works. A notorious fact, as I have been informed, is that the highest number of Protestants ever hired about the works was four, and ordinarily there were never over two.

"Mr. Dillon, Mr. Browne says in his card that the carbonizing account kept by him would show that he obtained a larger return of gas from the coal than you have done. How is this?"

Mr. Dillon-"The following comparison made from that carbonizing account of the yield of gas during the last seven months of Mr. Brown's term compared with the yield made during the corresponding seven months of my term will demonstrate clearly how much truth there is in Mr. Brown's allegation. This selection of times is made at random, and I am satisfied that a like showing in my favor would be made by a comparison of any other times:

YIELD PER POUND OF COAL.

Feet.

January 1879

January 1880, 4.67

February 1879

February 1880, 4.16

March 1879, 4.25

March 1880, 4.66

April 1879, 4.17

April 1880, 4.41

May 1879

May 1880, 4.05

June 1879, 4.66

June 1880, 4.05

July 1879, 4.66

July 1880, 4.99

"He has appealed to his carbonizing account; let the account show the result. All this has taken place while I have been learning my lesson. I followed his advice to study the duties of my new position before he sneeringly gave it. As to the quality of the gas supplied to the citizens of Wheeling I say with confidence that it is better than that used in any western city, as a photometric test will show. The standard of candle power in Cincinnati is 14.5, and in Columbus 14. Pittsburgh claims 15, but don't have it. Our gas has been about 16, oftener above than below that figure." Here the reporter was invited to witness the candle power of some gas that was made on Thursday, or before the appearance of Mr. Browne's card, as registered by a photometer. This gas registered 16 strong. "This gas," resumed Mr. Dillon, "is furnished at higher pressure than Mr. Browne deemed it necessary to keep up during his term of office. Mr. Brown had no photometer with which to estimate the power of the gas manufactured by him, and no doubt thinks that his gas was the brightest on the same principle that every crow thinks her chick the blackest.

That some citizens do not receive the full benefit of the good gas now made is generally owing to the fact that the workmen who labored under Mr. Brown's supervision, placed the meters and service pipes in situations where they were liable to be choked up by frost. The use of a little judgment on the part of Mr. Brown in superintending the work would have prevented or obviated this trouble. In the case of the street lamps, so many of which are frozen up by the severely cold weather this state of things results from the astonishing ignorance that characterizes the way in which they were set. Instead of using a three-quarter inch stand pipe a half inch or three-eighth inch pipe was used. The base of the post and the interior of the base, from which the earth should have been carefully excluded, was filled with earth, which freezes around the pipe causing frosts to form within and thus check the flow of gas. No posts set during my administration have frozen up this winter, nor have any of those of my predecessor, which time has allowed the last summer to properly reset.

"Mr. Brown also calls attention to the fact that a bench of 'fives' was not used during the winter of 1879. (About Christmas time.) This bench was not in a condition to be used at the time specified on account of the failure of Mr. Browne's contractors to complete the bench in contract time. Mr. Browne seems to take considerable credit to himself for defeating the project to build a new holder in 1879 which was proposed to Council, as I find by the minute book of the Trustees, not at a late period in the year, but in the month of May. How many thousands of dollars Mr. Browne's opposition cost the city, any person can estimate who will compare the rock bottom prices of iron, material and labor, in the summer of 1879 with the high figures which prevailed in 1880.

Mr. Browne seems to lament that his old North stack of four benches of fires were not changed into benches of seven retorts each. Every gas man who has visited the works, was surprised that such a structure, with its bad style of setting, was ever erected with its small, under-sized mouth pieces, which stopped up whenever a respectable heat was gotten up on the benches. It is a still greater matter of surprise that he should wish to retain in use such an apparatus, particularly when it is compared with the splendid structure that now fills its place. The old north stack, badly designed as it was, without a foundation to keep the water in the alley from coming up in the hearths, was made still worse by this accomplished engineer running it without buck staves for two years. As a consequence of his failure to put in buck staves, it was found, when the ovens were opened in 1880, that four of the piers were parted in the middle, the arches being much depressed. When the stack was taken down there were found about three inches of cement in front of the piers at the bottom, imitating bricks, and cunningly calculated to hide the bulge which had taken place in the piers before the buck staves were put in. The south stack was also injured on account of running it without buck staves from 1875 until the present administration supplied the defect. These ovens, that should have lasted at least twenty years are well nigh used up now.

Mr. Browne asks, 'Why is it that a municipal corporation will not manage a gas works as economically as a gas company can?'

I believe that the affairs of the Gas Works are as well managed under the present Trustees as ever those of any Gas Company were. Why this was not the case in Mr. Browne's time may perhaps be partially explained by Mr. Browne's warning certain of the Trustees that a solicitude for economy would render them unpopular. Duty, not popularity has been the watchword of the present administration. If a faithful discharge of duty brings popularity and gratifies the citizens, then matters are as they should be. If it does not bring popularity, then the officers will do their duty while on guard just as though it did. That the affairs of the Works are well and honestly managed is simply proved by the fact that the price of gas has been maintained, which is the least remunerative in the country when it is considered that the city pays nothing for its gas or the erection of lamp-posts. And it has been maintained notwithstanding Mr. Browne's confident prediction (based no doubt on the experience of his own management) that it could not be.

There is probably not a gas manager in the United States who fails to continually and carefully compare the amounts of gas made as shown by the station meter at the works with what is shown by the consumption accounts to have been used or sold. Such comparisons are the main dependence of a gas man in governing his leakage, any great difference between production and consumption for a given period indicating extraordinary leakage.

Now was Mr. Brown culpably lax in the discharge of his duties as to fail to make such comparisons, while the city was being robbed by the employees of the gas office, or is it a fact that he did know that the proportion of gas unaccounted for was immense, and yet opened the door for the frauds to be perpetrated by keeping his knowledge to himself. He may take either horn of the dilemma he pleases. If he says he had not access to the books at the office to determine what gas was accounted for, I say it was his duty to demand access to them. The reports made by the Secretary to the Council would have shown him what was accounted for. He is keen at looking up the reports of the present administration. Was he equally keen at looking up those made in his own time?

"Mr. Browne takes great credit to himself for putting in some apparatus during his term. As regards that when the improvements were made in 1872 Mr. Coverdale, the Cincinnati gas engineer, supervised that work, as I am informed. When the new apparatus was put in in 1879 at which time Mr. Browne allowed the contractor to put in a broken center seal, Mr. Otto Bender, Morris, Tasker & Co.'s engineer, was present. While I was "studying my lesson" at his suggestion, I invented a method of transferring tar by the use of steam, at a nominal expense. Mr. Browne's primitive method of doing the same work was to pump barrels full of tar and roll them to a convenient place and allow them to drip out. This was accomplished at an expenditure of labor which the value of the tar would not justify. There have also been many other improvements made while studying my lesson, which I will take pleasure in showing them to Mr. Browne if he will call at the works."