Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1888-05-31
BROOKLYN BRIDGE.
TWO HUNDRED TICKETS PER MIN
UTE DURING "RUSH HOURS"

A Steady Stream of Shop Girls, Working
women and Men, Morning ard Evening.
Patrons of the Notwithstanding Sta
tistics-Cost and Profits.
The day on the bridge begins early. At
8 O'Clock in the morning the cars begin to
run under minute and half headway.
The crowds pour in and what is known as
the crush hours begin. These are hours
Of hard work for every one, from the
superintendent of the road down to the
humblest brakeman. The little dummy
engines that run the three car trains from
the station out to the point where the
cable connects with the grip rush back
ward and forward, putting and snorting
and making a tremendous amount of
noise.
This is at 7:30 on the Brooklyn side.
About IS, 600 New York business men and
workmen, who use Brooklyn as a bed
room, are getting ready to launch them
selves into New York. At 7:45 the stream
is at high tide. At two glass covered
boxes within the spot where three men
are laboring with frantic energy to give
out tickets and make change, two stall
wart men stand to see that every passen-
ger deposits ticket. These men need to
be alert and quick eyed, for 200 persons
per minute are passing by these two glass
ticket boxes. 1t may seem easy work to
watch IL, 600 tickets per hour dropped in
to glass box, but the guards say it has
the effect of giving one the vertigo.
From 2 o'clock until $50 the stream of
humbly clad shop girls and working
&c Eon fcto I'd
some twenty odd thousand passengers are
carried over the river. Three cars start
each minute and half, but in the Sec
Onds that they are at a standstill each of
the cars is amply packed with ten tons of
humanity. This rush is kept up until
$3.50 O'Clock, after which there is lull,
the number of passengers passing the
ticket offices falling gradually from 12, 600
to 5000 per hour. Approaching noon it
is even less on the Brooklyn side, but
after this hour on the New York side the
thousands that thronged to New York
are hurrying back again, and after 4
O'Clock Brooklyn begins to regain its
population at the rate of from 200 to 300
per minute.
PATRONS OF THE FOOTwAY.
Of course these figures deal simply with
the railway. The footpath is less patron
lied now than formerly. There were
354, ,3O4 less persons who used it last year
than the year before,@lespite the fact that
any one who wishes to buy tickets by the
bunch may walk over the bridge and get
the finest views imaginable for the not
astounding sum of one-fifth of a cent.
The footway is popular only ON very mild
days, when it is the resort favored of good
looking nurses with distracting French
caps, who wheel baby carriages and ad-
mire the big policemen. The receipts of
the footway last year amounted to some
thing over SIG, 600, which would scarcely
pay its expenses, and it has been proposed
to make it free. This will scarcely be
done, for making it free would be throw
ing it open to tramps or worse charac-
ters, and making an increase of police
necessary.
The bridge railroad last year carried
q, $40, 313 persons, an increase of 3,911,-
O46 over the year before and the receipts
in money from it were $76S, 76S.79. The
fare is three cents per passage or ten
tickets for twenty-five cents. The general
average of passengers upon the bridge
road is about 10000 per day, but upon
foggy days, when the ferries are OBJ
the figures sometimes reach 1885,
600. In other words enough people pass
over the Brooklyn bridge every day in the
cars to populate three or four towns out
west, elect a few congressman, build
several railroads, get up corners in wheat
and pork and bring out presidential can
didate.
SOME MORE STATISTICS.
But there are some more statistics with
which not one person in hundred even
of those who cross the bridge Laily are ac-
quainted and familiar. One million forty
seven thousand nine hundred and sixty
eight vehicles crossed the bridge during
last year. Each vehicle is estimated to
carry three passengers. This estimate is
taken by reason of the number of funerals
that daily pass on their way to Green
wood, the great "City of the Dead' The
receipts from vehicles were $50, 1926.
The total receipts were $3.50, 724 %. 1t
may be interesting to know, too, that the
cars during the last year made 2,1I, ,4S4
single trips and travelled 2,442, ,47O miles.
In other words, had the tracks of the
bridge continued right around the world
the bridge cars would have girded the
world pretty nearly 100 times.
The bridge cost $15,000,000. 1t IS
worth it, but it has not yet paid it back.
Its sources of revenue are various. The
stone arches underits approaches have been
walled up and are rented as ware houses.
It charges the telephone and telegraph
for laying wires on the bridge.
The total income for the bridge from all
sources for the year was 1898, ,2S1.2 and
:he net profits were $685., ,S64 56. 1t has
been necessary to lay out most Of this
sum, however, in rolling stock and in pay
nents for real estate. Exactly 2,O70, 900
ives of humanity were conveyed across
,he East river in 1887 without a single
ife being lost. That is true enough to
De startling, and startling enough to be
untrue. However, it is truel When you
consider that for part of the day trains
ire running but a minute and half
apart, and carrying $4,000 passengers per
lour, and that even at the dullest part
# the day they are but couple of min
ties apart, this record is simply amaz-
York Mail and Express.
Fruits Of Experience.
Life Insurance Superintendent = Great