They who had been so "anxious to get to the case as soon as possible" refrained from printing the record, a condition precedent to putting the case on the docket of the United States Supreme Court. The city wanted the decision, and in order that the case might not be dismissed for this failure to print the record, and a decision upon the merits be thus prevented, the city's gas trustees advanced the money--$1100--to the court printer for printing the record. Pushed thus against their will to trial, when the day came on which they must rise to state their case the opponents of Toledo folded their tents and stole silently away. On the motion of their attorney the case was dismissed, against the protest of the city. They paid all the costs, including the money advanced by the city for printing the record. To their defeat all along the line they did not want to add a formal decision against them from the Supreme Court, which was inevitable. And they ran away to fight another day. Another purpose of these suits was confessed only a few weeks after this circular was issued. The existence of the suits was used to try to frighten the city's natural-gas trustees into accepting a "compromise." The compromise was that they should abandon the enterprise, sell out pipes and lands for a fraction of their worth, get their gas from the private company at higher rates, and put the city in its power for all time to come. "It will be three or four years before your case is through the Supreme Court," its representative told the natural-gas trustees, in urging them to accept. "You can't sell your bonds," he continued; "you have no money." The "compromise" was refused, but the city's pipe line had been delayed so long that the profits of the company for another twelvemonth were secure. The demonstration against the bonds in the United States Circuit Court had been followed by similar suits in the State courts. Here again the city was successful. It was upheld on every controverted ground--in the enabling act, in the vote of the people, in the appointment of the trustees by the governor, and in the issue of the city bonds. Appeal was taken here, as in the United States courts, and, as there, for delay, not for decision. To checkmate further use of this lawsuit to smother the law and cripple the city, the friends of the pipe line began a suit against the authorities to force an immediate decision from the Ohio Supreme Court as to the legality of the bonds. It was certainly, as was said in the press, "a curious state of things when the defendant is compelled to bring suit against himself because the plaintiff refuses to allow trial in his own case."