The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-08-20

OF the WcstHelu.
Let these men, therefore. be held to strict
accountability for their criminal ignorance
and wanton negligence in the discharge of
their duties.
Abuses of the Car Lines-The Car Mo-
nopoIists and the People.
If the cliques of car monOpolsts who have
gained exclusive permission from the Lcgisa-
ture 10 lay down their tracks in our main ave-
mes display d The faintest 'nse of heir duty
to the public it would be only Sst to temper
criticism with mercy. But this is not the case
With few exceptions every line ia the city is
managed with the grossest and most mpudsnt
disregard OF the personal comfort Of its passen-
gers. The officials of these vast corporations
seem, indeed, to imagine that their charter was
contract only on one side, and that only one
party to it was to derive any benefit from its
clauses. II would be interesting reading to
peruse at the present time the glowing prom
ises these men made when they first applied
to the Legislature to legalize their schemes.
People were to be transported about tho city
cheaply and safely in luxuriously appointed
vehicles. Every regard was to be had for their
convenience and comfort. The ride up and
down town was, indeed, to be a
pleasant oasis in the drelry routine of daily
toll. The exhausted shop girl, the tired
enjoy each day sort of spin upon rails-a
fvc-cents' drive in peoples carriage over a
smoother road than Bloomingdale. Such were
the pictures which we doubt not the promoters
of the car lines presented to the minds of a
listening Legislature. But, the charters once
gained, these persuasive pled yes of good con-
duct have been utterly forgotten. These car
monopolists give us, indeed, another and a
sad illustration of what we lave had frequent
occasion lately to denounce-the reckless,
greedy and INSCRIPTIONS spirit that seems to
animate our homegrown miilionnaires. Il is q
melancholy fact that such obstinate and persis-
tent indifference to popular rights should spring
up under free and just political institutions.
Last week we gave a list OF few of the abuses
that ranky flourish on the Third and Madison
avenue lines. The latter is by far the better
of the two, and we have not charged, and do not
charge that its cars are dirty, or that its con-
ductors are specially impollte, though they
are certainly not extravagantly courteous.
But in addition to the constant detentions to
these cars in Centre street there is another
grave error in the administration Of the line.
This is the changing of cars at the entrance to
| the tunnel on Fourth avenue. There are a
few through cars but frequently the vehicles
indicated as Central Park, without change,
stop at this particular spot Tuis is wrong as
wrong can be. and arises chiefly from the care
lessness of the management. Aud why do
not the Madison avenue cars run later9 Even
the Fourth avenue stop at midnight; but The
Madison avenue line ceases running so soon
that one can never catch Car after the
closing of theatre, especially if he fingers
half an hour in some festive oyster saloon,
and INDUCES in one Of those delightful, if not
luxurious, suppers that to some people form
half the charm of an evening visit to the
Halls of Thespis.
AS to the Third avenue, we repeat all that
we said last Sunday, and add, further, that they
are getting worse rather than better. These
cars are unendnrably filthy. and all, except the
|
every variety of repulsve vermin. And the
overcrowding is simply horrible. A ride in
one of them up town about six o'clock on a
week day evening would have enabled Dante
to have invested He'll with new horror. He
would have pictured City of the Shades, in
tersected with car tracks and traversed by
spectral Third avenue cars, in charge Of
ghostly, but still, as in life, brutal and un.
civil Third avenue car conductors; and in
these moving dens Of discomfort the poet
would have fixed for an endless eternity the
forms, shrunken and withercd by avarice, Of
the very greediest among our American
Princes of Mammon.
And on this Third Avenue line we have to
complain also of the same trouble about the
through cars as on the Madison Avenue. The
printed sign on the car itself is no Indication
whatever of its destination. Over and over
again, after waiting ten minutes in the cold on
January night at one o'clock in the morning,
to get an inside seat in through car, some
unfortunate night-worker down town has been
startled by the voice of the conductor at Sixty
fifth street crying ont, ''Change cars for Har-
lem!" With shudder and growl the poor
wretch has then had to make his way to
the other and already full car. and to
stand shivering on the platform for perhaps
fifty blocks, catching on the road o life