After the Fostoria incident the people of Toledo had another illustration given them of how wisely they had builded. The gas supply of the people of Columbus, Ohio, was shut off arbitrarily and suddenly in midwinter--January, 1891--and they were informed that the company would supply them with no more gas unless the City Council would raise the price to 25 cents a thousand feet from 10 cents. The gas had not failed. The caverns that discharge gas at 25 cents a thousand will let it come just as freely at 10 cents. The council had fixed the price at 10 cents, and the company had accepted it. The demand for a higher price was close upon an increase in the capital stock of the Columbus company from $1,000,000 to $1,750,000. More stock called for more dividends, and this was one way to get it--to strike this sudden blow, and then to say, after the manner of Silas Wegg, "Undone for double the money!" It was for the power to do this at Toledo, to preserve the power of doing it everywhere else, that hell and earth were being moved in Toledo to prevent the people from serving themselves and setting an example to the rest of America. In the same way the gas was turned off at Sidney, Ohio, and not turned on again until, upon the application of the mayor, the company was ordered to do it by the courts. "There is a great deal of suffering here," the press reported, "and it is feared that several deaths will result from exposure." The people did not fail to comprehend the significance of criticisms in the Toledo organ on the municipal water supply. Monopoly must go on conquering and to conquer, or be overborne by the ever-recuperating resentment which rises against it, freshened with each new day. Nature hates monopoly, says Emerson. The studied attack on the city water works was believed to be meant to prepare the people to intrust that as well as the gas supply to the trust's "sound business men" and "private enterprise." Finding that the council would not bend to the demands as to rates, and that the people were too resolute to be in any way diverted from their pipe line, Toledo was given some such doses as could be ventured upon of the Fostoria and Columbus medicine. The company shut gas off from those who would not pay the increased rate. It deprived public institutions of their fuel. It refused to supply gas to a new public school whose building was planned for natural gas. As the city's pipe line was not completed, the children had to go cold. The winter of 1891-2 was the first winter the city's pipe line was in operation. With the first cold snap, at the end of November, great distress and danger were brought upon the people by a lawless act, done secretly by some unknown person to the city's pipe line. One of the main pipes in the gas-field, through which flowed the product of two of the largest gas wells, was disconnected, so that its gas could no longer reach Toledo. Who did this was never discovered.[552]