B & O Telegraph & Postal Telegraph deny consolidation

No Further Consolidation Yet.

Officers of the Baltimore and Ohio Telgraph Company, including President and General Manager D. H. Bates, and officers of the Postal, including General Manager Cummins, said on Tuesday that the published reports of a consolidation or any other union of the two companies were pure fabrications. While representatives of both sides admitted that a union or a territorial or working agreement of some sort was one of the possibilities of the future, and in some respects desirable for both, they said positively that no negotiations on these points had yet been opened, though there has been some informal talk on the subject of territory.

An officer of one of the companies said that he presumed the story arose from what he was told was a fact, that Mr. Robert Garrett of the Baltimore and Ohio, and one of the directors of the Bankers and Merchants' met casually on Monday. Another officer said that he had been informed that a prominent stock brokerage house had made extensive short sales of Western Union ani had circulated the story with the view of depressing that stock.

Should the companies make any arrangement, it appears likely that Mr, D. H. Bates will be vested with the active, control of the combined, oppsition [sic] opposition forces.