New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1867-03-01
THE CAR NUISANCE.
General.


The other day the floor of a Bowery car fell
through, happily without injury to the fifty Or
sixty persons crowded thereon, inside and out.
Bowery cars are necessarily of strong build.
and the pressure needed TO force the bottom
out of one of them is to be imagined. con-
slant average of from thirty to forty persons
on these cars at certain periods of the day
a crowd of pushers and elbOwers, huddled OF
jammed, as the case may be--ought TO break
down the strongest car. IT is humbling 10 tho
public sense to think that each passenger on one
of our city lines is condemned to pay six cents
for the precious privilege of getting his toes
tr0dden on and of breathing n bad atmos-
phere. 1t is at last impossible for an invalid to
ride in our city cars, and even well person
must run risk, more or less, in so doing. Thus,
they are questionable comfort and bad ac-
commodatiOn which nearly million of people.
rich enough to fare better, and paying roundly
for the petty miseries we have mentioned, sui
fer as meekly as dromcdaries, day by day.
We cannot help thinking that while
the car companies carry their passengers
in this fashion, the passengers themselves have
a camels load to bear in tOlcrating the abuses
of the cheap system of car-liding. Nothing
can be more vulgar and unwhocSomo than the
social jam in the cars on Third-ave., for in
stance. There is no place where pockets can
be more readily picked, and where thieves
more naturally swarm as every townsman wei
knows. But human kind endure only fraction
of the evils resultant from OyercrOwdmg-
the rest are visited upon the poor brute. We
are content to put our objections in the form
of question. If crowd of fifty passen-
gers are enough at last to knock the bottom
out of a Third-ave. ear, how much of load.
dragged daily up hill and down ILL, is necos-
sary to break down horse We commend
this problem to our legislators, and beg them
TO cipher it ont with the help of some of orr
passenger companies statistics. Especially We
ask them to do this in view of the bill lately
drawn by the philanthropic Mr.. Bergl-a bill
not more for the prevention of cruelty to AMI
mails than to passengers.
We heartily commend the substance Of this
humane and reformatOIy measure. 1t provides
that, as cars cannot accommodate more than
twenty-five, and Omnbuses no more than
twelve passengers, so they shall not be allowed
TO become crowded to twice their capacity.
and that ut certain grades an additional horse
shall be attached to each car. These provisions
are dictated by the best regard for the public
economy and well being. There is not shadow
of doubt that under its Operation-and such
operation should be immediate - companies
can earn as much as ever, and passen-
gers will fare better. There can be no
doubt of this, and it remains stand
ing wonder that corporations mexhaustlble
in purse, and a public powerful for any reform
affecting their familiar interests, can tolerate
senseeSS, notorious cruelties 10 man and beast.
If this good -natured public of ours is to be
treated rs n beast of burden-if its respectable
numbers are to be thrown together as If they
were so many loafers and paupers (and an emit.
grant ship nowadays is not more pestilently
packed than a city car)-let no one he sur
prised if it kicks in the traces upon SiXpenny
worth of provocatiOn. We are long enough used to
the odious discomfOrts of our car system to in
vent or manage something better To pay the
tax of cent for every mill that the cars pay
the Government and this i'll order to perpetu-
ate and enrich misery mOnopolieS, cruel and un-
comfortable to man and animal, will seem to
many a traveller both absurd and shameful. The
public. which is thus made beast of burden.
ought to make up its mind to drive the corpora
tions a little Any set of men, even Board or
Councilmcn, can manage our city lines as weii
as they are managed now. The tendencies to
an oppressive and arrogant mismanagement OF
all means of transportation that are now com
monty ovcr-crowded and as commonly prosper
GUS must be apparent to all who travel by
rail- whether the cars are the hives on wheels
that belong to Camden and Amboy, or tho
movable pens that run up the BOwery. Now.
we protest, once for all, against this too much
swamng-this shockingly cheap committal of
the public to its own discomfort.
There is no compromise of opinions or OF
measures we can offer or entertain on tins sub
iect of the street railway nuisance. The city
should be relieved, and the sureSt and most
comprehensive way to this relief will be gained
by the speedy adoption of the best under
ground plan of railroad.