The sun., 1878-12-30
OUR HORSE CAR TRIUMPHS.
TIE AMERICAN CAR Nv EXCLUSIVE USE
All OYER THE World.
Vehicles for Russia, India, and Australia
The Beginning and Preseut Proportions
OF the Industry-The BobtniIcd Variety.

The BegInning and Present Proportions
OF the Industry-The BobtaiIed Variety. |
From time to time you see in Broadway, |
or some cross street leading to the wharves. a
huge. queerly-shaped box Of rough boards.
tightly made. and addressed to some far distant |
place. Bombay. New Zealand. Java. or Russia.
Nobody could guess the contents Of the box. but |
the initiated know that 1t holds n horse car
built by John Stephenson 4 Co. Other nations
have failed to make good horse cars. Not many
months ago new tramway company in Lon
don made proposals foe bids for ths construc-
ton OF lot of cars and n score OF English and
French builders entered into competition. But
John Stephenson obtained the award. never
theless. There must be n very marked superb
ority in our American cars to mako It worth
whilo to transport them so far as they are sent
1t costs t125 to transport horse car from Now
York to London. and double that much TO got II
from here to New Zealand. And the mention
ot New Zealand Is not a more figure Of speoch.
Three cars are now nj Stephenson to 70 there
Not only does transportation cost so much but
sent labor and materials nre cheaper than here
60 that primary cheapncss certainly Is not an
element in the calculations Of their buyers.
The first street car eyer built was the work ~
Mr.. Stephenson, in 1881, and very different
conrivancc i was from that OF to-day. II was
partmcnts aud its picture representa- It as
sort OF cross between m omnibus a rockaway,
ana IN l4nElltn fNliWuN f'Wfn ~ was. DdlnHt
nfter John Mason President of tho Chemical
Bank and Of tho New York and Harlem Rail-
6n 69ad and f tRe {S or as |fH 6
English term our horse railroads, spread from
city to city Now there ara nearly four hundred
street railways in the United States.
From the United States the demand for street
cars spread tn Canada, and they have been us
tRblishcd in Montreal Quebec. Toronto, Ham
lton. ottawa ST. Johns and Halifax. The first
shipment OF horse curs tp q Foreign country wns
to Batuvia Javu in 1857 T. In 1860 George
Francis Train mWUn n pNurNptnristipuIlV UWaN-
ing cndeavor to introduce street cars in Eng
land; Ho got one started at Blrkenhcad. but Il
fell through 10y reason Of mismanagoment. and
when one was started in London it bred a riot.
and people tore NJ the rails. That popular an
England that it did not recover for ten years
but now American cars are operated In Amor-
Leeds. Wolverhampion, HUI. and Blrkcnhend.
England; swansea. Wales; Glasgow, Edin-
burgh and Aberdeen. Scotland. In London
alone about two hundred cars are running.
The protective policy Of France has pretty
much shut out American enterprise in the
Gently been driven by the establishment Of a
line in Calais In Berlin. Bremen. Hamburg.
Christana and st. pcfersburg. American
street cars are running and qre popular At
| Africa where they have been introduced, but
| since they are already established institutions
In New Zealand. at Wellington. Christ Church.
| and Dunedin. 1t IS hardly To be expected that
| even the barbarlsm Of the Iambesi can long do
without them. Bombay is the only place they
doned English tramway IL under discussion in
| Calcutta. and II It comes to anything America
| will furnish the cars. such gorgeous and elah-
crate things-adorned with pictures outside
| Ike n circus WAGON and emhlazoned with
Sdesde adeied Po RdeSe oSd Snd 'GT h9mST5
| South Australia. all have American horse cars
| in operation. and tramways are projected in
Melbourne. New south Wales. OF rather have
| SO far advanced toward realization that applica-
| ton has been made here for estimates upon
| supplying them. JeddO, Japan IL also in cor
| rrspondence with view 10 getting American
cars for horse railroad there. the first in that
About 1870 South America plunged into street
| railway enterprises Tor the Improvement Of
nearly ali the principal cities on that continent.
| The long list Of places whore the New YORK built
| street cars are successfully run includes Mara
| Maranhao Pernambuco, Bahia Rio Jnneiro,
| and Porto Allegro. IN Brazil; Santa Thersse
| and Montevi9eo, in Uruguay; Coucorlia. Ro-
sario. san Nicolas and Buenos Ayres. in the
| Argentine Republic: santiago de Chill and Val
lima in PeSu s,n ~ fih Costa Ra G'ny n,lu
| aqutl in Ecuador. AMI in Bogota. the capital Of
| Colombia, a street railway is now about T. be
| substituted for a line Of omnihuscs. Ia Mcv-
| leo. the City Of Mexico. Vera Cruz and Mata-
| moros have street railways, In the West Indies
Kingston. Jameica. And ail these are supplied
entirely, ms 10 their rolling stock. from this city.
except in few cases whore extraordinary OBJ
staces exist in the way OF trans portutlon. M in
| reaching the city of Lima. Tor instance In sura
| and the wood work Of the ears is supplied ~
we'll As practicable where the ears are t. hc
| used. from the drawings and plans furnished
ythe New YORK builders.
The % bobtail " one-horse car Is deemed the
| most advanced American idea in the direction
| Of street railway travel and il getting rapidly
| into favor all over the world, suppanting the
| od-time two-horse cars wherever II IL tried.
| Street railway companies find their profit in II.
| and Mr.. Stephenson-whO with Mr. J. b. Slaw-
son. inyented lt"Waxes eloquent m It's adyo-
cacy He says: II IS the result OF experience.
| not merely crude idea that has sprung into
existence spontaneously. Originally we built
| our cars with seats on top, and the theory WAS
| 70 carry AL We could on iour wheels with two
| horses TO draw the load. Those ears were nee
essarily very heavy, We're hHmperrd NJ with
| starways on the platforms. were slow and hard
| 20 stop and start and very wearing on horses.
| In time we lightened the cars and did away with
the top seats AT length we came 10 understand
that the best results were atiainable not with
any form of two horse, but with one-horse
car. We build tho latter as light rs posi-
ble so thatit stops and starts easily an 4 quickly
goes faster; aud IS much easier On the horses
The President Of Philadelphia company
which has two lines. one with tw0-horse and
the other with one-hOrse cars. has said 10 me ::
When our horses get worn down On the two
horse cgr line we transier them 10 the other 10
"A Brooklyn street railway President has told
me the same thing. And they pay better. A
change to them made a difference To one phila-
delphia company ot SO 600 a year. and to a st.
Louis company OF sl4O00. Eventually they
viii come INTO general USE They are Intended
10 be run at the rate Of three Of then in place Of
| two Of the old two-hOrse ears. the advantage Of
which every one can readily see. They were
breaking out Of the war oi the rebellion. In
fact, the last boat that got down the river wns
one from New Albany, Ind. laden with fifty
seven Of those cars for New Orleans, But only
since the war have they heen n general use.
and wherever they have been introduced they
have run the old style out OF the field
Mr. stephenson does not look hopefully upon
the prospect Of the ultimate substitution of me-
chanical for animal power in operating street
cars. lie says there Is not in the world to-day
a tramwaY doing regular street service sue
cessfully with mechanical motor. and he has
much less faith in such thing than ho had
| twenty years ago.
One horse cars cost from 5000 10 81 900 each
according TO finish and style, and two horse
cars only about IN mara