Q- — The chief -trouble comes from this Committee now, does it
not? A. — I am willing to meet the Committee of Millbury fairly;
but when the Committee of Millbury say, "If you adopt this sj's-



243

tem of downward filtration, and spend five hundred thousand or a
million dollars, you have got to pay us for the evaporation of the
water," it don't seem to me to be very liberal, and I should not
expect the people of Worcester to indorse any such statement as
that. They think they have a right, if their dams give way, to use
a little of the water above, without having everybody put in a little
bit of a claim. They think they have a right to go into this brook
and use it, without paying tribute to Caesar every time they move.
Q. (By the Chairman.) — Do j'ou think, from what you hear said
by the citizens of Worcester, that there is a feeling among them that
some experiments ought to be tried ? Do j'ou think there is a dis-
position favorable to such experiments ? A. — I think they would
leave it to the City Government. I have talked with some of the
heavy tax-payers there ; and I think there would be a disposition to
have a reasonable experiment tried, if the city were allowed to try it ;
but to be forced into trj-ing an experiment suggested by engineers,
■who do it simply for the purpose of trying an engineering scheme,
without knowing what the results would be, — I think there would be
opposition to it.
