The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1876-02-12

LII tuo operation OF passenger trdlno Dy
the horse car companies it is to be supposed
that there is the same consideration of the
relation between receipts and expenditures
which is found in all other systematic en-
deavors to secure a profit. There is the
same effort to take in the utmost cent and
the same anxiety to lay out as little as posi-
BILE. Consequently the companies spare no
trouble and even spend great deal of
money to secure every fare, to prevent the
theft of five cents, because the possession of
that five cents involves in principle their
whole receipts They equally give very
great thought to the economy of dollar, for
the same natural reason that every dollar
saved is an addition to the difference they
hope to make between what is taken in and
what is paid out.
Suppose any great commercial establish
ment were able at stroke of the pen to sup
press any one of its larger items of expendi-
ture, or even to reduce such an item by one
half, how great difference this would make
in its prosperity If Stewart, or Clafin, or
the Flint Glass Company, or any other es-
Enlistment that sends every week vast
number of packages to retail traders in
every part of the country, could
save all or half the money it costs
to buy cases and pack the goods, that
alone would often determine the prosperity
of seasons trade. Many merchants do
economic largely over their fellows in this
respect Some charge all this to the Gus
toner, and some pack in one case what
others. would put in three. This economy,
especially in regard to glass, is limited by
the requirement that the wares sent shall
reach the customer in good order. But if
this requirement did not exist all our mer-
chants would Immediately become "bloated
bondholders." Any dealer who now packs
his artistic wares of glass, porcelain or other
delicate material with due regard to safety
in transportation, must do it at liberal out
lay for lumber; but if it was of no conse-
qience to him how it was delivered he
could grind up set of porcelain in NOR
tar, pack the shard in an old straw hat and
toss the precious parcel into the express
wagon as it passed his door, No money for
lumber, none for hay or straw no wages for
an expert packer; no carman or horse and
cart required on the premises. He would
go to Europe in q few years to spend the
superfuity of his accumulations, and the
best that rival tradesmen could hope woald
be to hear that he had been blown up by
dynamite.
Now, this is just the position in which
street car company stands with regard to the
people. Its vehicles are packing boxes in
which so many passengers are sent from one
end of the line to the other, and the condi-
ton in which the goods reach their destina-
ton is of no consequence to the company,
provided, only injury stops short of such
physical manning as will afford ground for
a suit at law Absolved, therefore, from the
requirement to spread out the passengers in
orderly rows down either side the packing
box; permitted to jam them in with n.y.
draulic pressure, from one-third to one-half
the expenditure for packing boxes and
horses to haul them is economical. Packed
like sardines down below and hanged like
hams up above, the car thai ould seat twenty
may be made to carry sixty. If any in
genious person will sketch in his minds
eye, Horatio, a transverse section of horse
car, with four-and-twenty passengers seated
viS-d-viS, he will Immediately perceive that
not more than one-third the space is filled.
There is all the distance on either side be-
tween the passengers heads and the roof
quite empty. In the middle the space be-
tween the passengers is unoccupied from the
roof to the floor. At least twelve can be put
in row down either side of this middle
space hanging by Straps and leaning over
the heads of the seated passengers, while
the space between these semi-pendent rows
has an unascertained capacity for stowage.
Thus, if a car with seats for twenty four
carries seventy-two, the company saves the
price of two packing boxes, the price and the
feed Of four horses, the wages of two drivers
and the wages and pilferings of two con-
ductors. If company only has to support
two horses instead of six, one driver and
conductor instead of three, and to buy and
keep in order instead of three cars only one,
and can still take in just as much money
from its traffic, the difference this must make
in its accounts is obvious. Some con-
ductors, slightly more idiotic than the rest,
assure us that unless this sort Of thing may
continue the companies will be made bank
rupt that, in short, the only profit of this
traffic is in its abuses that all the money
made by the car companies is simply coined
out of the inconvenience and the misery of
the people compelled to use these vehicles.
Our opinion on that head is that the sol
vency of the company will oftener be found
to turn on the condition of the conductors
pockets-bell punches to the contrary not
withstanding. But if the horse cars cannot
carry the public conveniently without loss,
perhaps some of the rapid transit companies
can and if the horse car companies are
forced to treat the public properly, and find