Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 4.djvu/261

245 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. Vol. IV. JANUARY 15, 1891. No. 6. POLES AND WIRES IN THE STREETS FOR THE ELECTRIC RAILWAY. NOT without challenge have all the appliances of the witches* " broomstick train " been set up in so many of our cities during the past few years. It is not the return of the witches, however, that troubles. the practical people of this present time, but rather the setting up of a row of innocent poles in the streets and stretching a wire overhead charged with the electric current. It is not ** the black cat's purr as the train goes by," nor even the gleam of the old hag's wicked eye, but rather the obstruction of travel by the poles, or the effect of the current in the wire on conversation by telephone, that leads to applications for injunction against the use of the electric railway. Whatever the reason, it is true that the new mode of propelling street cars has given the courts a new subject for discussion and has produced, already, a whole line of legal decisions of greater or less authority. It seems likely that the witches have come to stay, and that they will soon infest the whole country, and it may be interesting to see how the courts are dealing with them again after a rest of " a couple of hundred years or so." It is quite safe to say that the courts will not attempt to meddle again with the witches themselves; but, without stopping to inquire whether Dr. Holmes has told us truly " where was the motor that made it go," the courts will deal rather with the questions by what right these poles and wires are put up in the streets,