A few days after this report was spread abroad, people were startled to
learn that the aldermen had reached a decision, and that the franchise
was to be given to the Third Avenue road, for a sum that was nothing
like its real value.

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.