The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1876-02-13
PRESS OPINIONS.
STREET CARS.

From the New York Times OF yesterday
1t very small thing ask OF the street rail
road companies that they shall guarantee fourteen
inches OF sitting each grown person who shall
pay his fare. Yet this is all that the most radical
measure ever introduced the Legislature demands
of these corporations 1t cannot be doubted that the
announcement that the street companies had
solved guarantee this space TO their would
| DO greeted with satisfaction. The travelling public,
always in hurry to get somewhere and never with
lesure enough observe how it is getting there does
not see how scandalously It is imposed upon until
some moral hero, some city Hampton, withstands the
! public enemy and makes example OF the railroad
company.
BY and by when the popular conveyance for the
streets the relation to the street of the
present the street does Irish jaunting
car posterty will be- amazed at the patience with
which this generation submitted TO the nsolence Of
corporations and peoned for fourteen inches of room
But 1t cannot be expected that the street companies
will do anything for the comfort Of their passen-
gers except under compusion. They have provided
against competition and only the Legislature, from
which their powers derived, compel them to
conccde anything whatever to the public demand In
fact the public do demand" anything except in
that vague and general way which popular grum-
bling takes shape For this the railroad corporations
do not care straw. They know very we'll that what
is everybodys business is nobody's ana il Is only
when influential and well.to citizen like
/
the courts that they regard popular any
attention The spectacle OF street car crowded with
passengers, who are made wretched and unhappy by
bad air and physical pressure Ii enough to move any
mans indignation. Here is an association OF capital
lists who make great deal Of money their invest
ments who hold absolute franchise In the public
streets who keep their employees in a rigorous bond
age and who daily exact payment OF fare from twice
many passengers they furnish with suitable
modations Why should it DO tolerated.
| It's answer to this statement to say that the
people are to blame-that they persist in getting
I uh han Enn lv wall lint
get seat IL is very true that passengers will crowd
steamboat until is overloaded, and thai the
thousandth man is just eager 10 60 the rst
of the first five hundred which the vessel carry
safely could possibly have been. But this is argu-
ment against the right and duty OF the Legislature to
against themselves The gates OF ferry landings and
railway depos are not for the convenience OF the
poraton they are 70 prevent people from rushing into
l danger and death. So long men will jump al
! ready overcrowdcd the companies will be willing
to carry them and collect fares from fty passengers
/ instead OF IRON twenty-five. The company that can
crowd Its daily traffic into hundred vehicles will
increase its stock unless compelled to do so by
/ something more than popular demand "
When the Law declares that the complement Of pas
sengors shall be limited the capa-
city of the vehicle the corporations will find ample
means OF accommodating the public travel There is
possible danger that anything but a snow blockade
or disease among horses will prevent somebody from
furnishing facilities for cheap street travel At any
rate, the state Of things of which the street
panies profess to mako some complaint is their
work These corporations have been the steady and
active opponents Of every scheme OF rapid transit
this city. Whenever the Legislature has been asked
to provide some means to relieve the thorough
fares from the pressure Of travel the railroad
companies have used every to defeat
that petition They have managed to secure
monopoly OF street passenger transportation they
have up the most arrogant claims TO ownership in
the streets OF this CITY, an1 have assumed the right
hold the avenues through which they have laid their
tracks, with the power to decide whether any vehicles
but their own shall pass through them. And having
fortified themselves and driven OF all competition
they say that they furnish adequate accommo
datons for the travel which they have fought
TO monopolize The people OF New York the real
owners Of the streets To the railroad companies has
been given the right to hxed Of pas
senger fare The people who the streets humby
fourteen inches Of space for each who rides
and pays the price oil his transportation