Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1874-06-05
Correspondence.
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
THE STAGE DRIVERS sTRIKE-wHAT 1T
is ABOUT, OLD KIPP--KNOCKING DOWN
-LABOR--DR WEATHER.
NEW YORK. June 2. 1874.
THE STAGE DRIVERS STRIKE.

NEW YORK, June 2, 1874.
THE STAGE DRIVERS STRIKE.
Last Monday the stage drivers of New
York struck for an advance of wages.
They have been receiving $3.50 per day,
and struck for $500. Monday and Tues
day the hundreds of thousands of people
who depend upon the stages, to get up and
down town, were compelled to fall back
upon the street cars, or walk. Half took
the street cars and the other half plOdded
their weary way on foot.
1t is singular how little thing makes
or mars the happiness Of the denizen of
Gotham. In this matter of transportation,
for instance, anything that interferes with
it, in however slight 4 degree, works dis
comfort in the whole city. The transpor-
tation capacity is deficient at best, and if
any one of the means of going to and fro
overburdened to an unbearable degree.
Hence the public shuddered when the
stage drivers dismounted from their boxes,
and the stages stopped. Broadway imme-
diately assumed queer aspect. You could
actually cross it in safety. The thousand
stages taken off, so reduced the number of
vehicles, that the street lost its crowded
appearance and became quiet orderly
place.
The drivers ought to have got the ad-
vance they asked for, for their is nothing
in the way of labor, so severe as theirs.
They are seated in their boxes, though it
may rain, hail or shine, seventeen hours
each day, except Sunday, and the skill re-
quired is very great. 1t is no small matter
to guide stage through the great crush
of vehicles that crowd Broadway, with one
eye on one side and the other on the other
watching for passengers. Its trade that
requires years Of practice.
The strike revealed queer thing. The
custom has always been for the drivers to
receive the fares. You got into the stage
and pokcd your ten cents up through hole
to the driver, who deposited it in box, ,and
was supposed to turn it over to the pro-
prietors ut the end of the round. So long
as this way of doing things continued, the
Jehus never said anything about wages.
They were satisfied with $3.50 per day,
for they paid themselves, such salary as
they saw fit. They turned over at the end
of the trip what they pleased. But last
fall the proprietors, put in each stage,
glass box, into which the passengers de-
posted their own fare. Then trouble en-
sued. Thele was no more knocking
down." The driver got his s. per day,
and nothing more or less. Then he struck
for more pay, and for two days the public
did without stages.
OF course the drivers were beaten.-
There are, to-day, fifty thousand able
bodied men in New York with nothing to
do, who would jump at the chance to get
work at S1.50, no matter what it might be,
and the companies found enough capable
of doing this work, and they mounted them
at once, an1 on Wednesday the trouble
was over.
Speaking of drivers, there is legend
connected with Col. Kipp, of the old firm
of Kipp & Brown, the oldest stage proprie-
Tors in this city. In those days the fare
was six pence. Kipp was on a hay loft at
the terminal stable, and he observed a
driver who Just made his trip and put out
his horses, take out his box to fix things
for making his return to the cashier. He
emptied out pile of silver sixpences, and
i'm an audible voice said "This is for old