Suburbs such as Lake View and Hyde Park, having town or village councils of their own, were permitted to grant franchises to water, gas, and street-railway companies duly incorporated under the laws of the state.

Cowperwood calculated that if he could form separate and seemingly distinct companies for each of the villages and towns, and one general company for the city later, he would be in a position to dictate terms to the older organizations.

It was simply a question of obtaining his charters and franchises before his rivals had awakened to the situation.
The one difficulty was that he knew absolutely nothing of the business of gas--its practical manufacture and distribution--and had never been particularly interested init.

Street-railroading, his favorite form of municipal profit-seeking, and one upon which he had acquired an almost endless fund of specialized information, offered no present practical opportunity for him here in Chicago.

He meditated on the situation, did some reading on the manufacture of gas, and then suddenly, as was his luck, found an implement ready to his hand.
It appeared that in the course of the life and growth of the South Side company there had once been a smaller organization founded by a man by the name of Sippens--Henry De Soto Sippens--who had entered and actually secured, by some hocus-pocus, a franchise to manufacture and sell gas in the down-town districts, but who had been annoyed by all sorts of legal processes until he had finally been driven out or persuaded to get out.