Western Union files suit against American Union

TELEGRAPH WAR IN THE WEST.

DENVER, Col., Feb. 26. — The contest between the "Western Union Telegraph Company and Mr. Gould's new telegraph company commenced here to-day. It has heen announced that the American Union Company would supplant the "Western Union Company on the Union Pacific Roads. The Western Union Company discovered that large telegrapn batteries were being secretly erected in the office of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, and that a new line of telegraph was covertly constructed from these batteries to a point in the central part of the city, and that the whole telegraph line from here to Kansas City would be seized and controlled by connecting it with the new batteries and the Western Union dispossessed. To prevent the consummation of any such act, the Western Union Company last night filed its bill in the District Court of Arapahoe County against the American Union Telegraph Company and the Kansas Pacific Railroad Company, applying for an injunction, which was granted this afternoon by Judge Elliott. The injunction restrains the Kansas Pacific Railroad Company from permitting the American Union Telegraph Company to operate any of the wires erected along the Kansas Pacific Railroad from Denver to Kansas Citv, and prohibiting both defendants from disconnecting any of the wires from the batteries of the Western Union Telegraph Company, or continuing such disconnection of said wires with any of the batteries except those of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and restraining the railroad company from permitting the use of the poles by the American Union Telegraph Company. This litigation raises the question of the validity of the contracts existing between the Western Union Telegraph Company and the railroad company, which has been in force, and under which the telegraph lines have been operated/ for many years.