There was a great outcry at once.

The memory of the “Broadway Steal” in 1886 was too fresh in people’s minds for them to be willing that it should be repeated.

The newspapers started the cry, the law was invoked, and the aldermen were forbidden to pass the franchise for the Kingsbridge Road until the matter had been looked into.

The aldermen were a good deal startled when these papers were served on them.  They remembered the Broadway trouble, and how three of a former board of aldermen had been sent to prison, six had had to leave the country, and four had only saved themselves from punishment by telling the story of their crimes, and helping the authorities to punish their fellow-sinners.

The recollection of this worried the aldermen, but they determined to meet the accusations against them, and asked their lawyer, Mr. Scott, to go to court, and ask the judge to allow them to grant the franchise.

Mr. Scott, however, refused.  He told them that in his opinion they had not the slightest right to pass that franchise, and he would not go into court and plead for a thing which he knew to be wrong.

The aldermen, much disturbed at this, decided to let the matter of the franchise alone, and though there is some talk of looking more closely into the matter, and finding if any bribery has been attempted by the railroads, the chances are that now the danger is past the matter will be allowed to rest.

G.H.  ROSENFELD.

BOOK REVIEWS.

WILD NEIGHBORS, OUT-DOOR STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES, by Ernest Ingersoll, is a most interesting addition to the new books of the year.  It treats in a charming way of some of the better-known animals of this country, and will be especially appreciated by those of our boys who love out-door sport.  It will prove instructive, as well. (The publishers are Macmillan & Co., New York, and the price, $1.50.)

Part of the author’s description of the panther reminds your editor of an interesting experience he had in the Adirondacks.  Ingersoll says that “‘the blood-curdling screams’ of the puma have furnished forth many a fine tale for the camp-fire, but evidence of this screaming which will bear sober cross-examination is scant.”  In the fall of 1875 we were camping in a little clearing on the bank of the Racquette River; one of our guides, an impulsive Frenchman, started out alone one night, without waking us, and succeeded in shooting a deer.  Down the river he came, shouting and making a terrible racket to express his delight; the whole party was awake and out of the tent by the time he reached the landing.  Lifting the deer out of the boat, we hung it up on a pole between two trees, and then, brightening up the fire, sat around telling stories until old Father Nod began to remind us that it was 3 A.M., and not breakfast-time.  Just then there came the most blood-curdling scream I have ever heard, and it seemed