Wichita eagle., 1888-06-08
BROOKLYN BRIDGE.
TWO HUNDRED TICKETS PER MIN.
UTE DURING "RUSH HOURS"

UTE DURING "RUSH HOURS"
A Steady Stream of Shop Girls, Working
women and Men, Morning and Evening.
Patrons Of the Footpath-StartlinGS Sta
tistics-Cost and Profits.
The day on the bridge begins early. At
6 O'Clock in the morning the cars begin to
run under a minute and half Roadway
The crowds pour in and what is known as
the rush 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 cut to the point where the
cable connects with the grip rush back
ward and forward, putting and snorting
and making q tremendous amount OF
noise.
This is at 7:30 on the Brooklyn side.
About 1000 New York business men and
worknen, who use Brooklyn as 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 a 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 $4,000 tickets per hour dropped in
to glass box, but the guards say it has
the effect Of giving one the vertigo.
From o'clock until $50 the stream Of
humbly clad shop girls and working
women and men is kept steadily up, and
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 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 luIl,
the number of passengers passing the
ticket Offices falling gradually from Il, 900
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
O'Clock Brooklyn begins to regain its
population at the rate of from 200 to 800
per minute.
PATRONS OF THE FooTwAY.
OF course these ftures 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, despite 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-ffth 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, 900, 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 $768, 76S. 49, 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 90,0 900 per day, but upon
foggy days, when the ferries are OBJ
structed, the figures sometimes reach 1876
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 few congressman, build
several railroads, get up corners in wheat
and pork and bring out presidential can
1idate.
SOME MORE STATISTICS.
But there are some more statistics with
which not one person in a hundred even
of those who cross the bridge daily 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 $65, 743. 26,
The total receipts We're $3.50, 724. %. IL
may be interesting to know, too, that the
cars during the last year made 2,171 ,4S4
single trips and travelled 2, AZ, 40 miles.
In other words, had the tracks of the
HiAoSSO dicuLu Jilc WOIlO
the bridge cars would have girded the
world pretty nearly 100 times
The bridge cost S15, 900, 900 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.
1t charges the telephone and telegraph
for laying wires on the bridge.
The total income for the bridge from all
sources for the year was S93S PSI 81. and
the net profits were 1923, s64 SO. 1t has
been necessary TO lay out most of this
sum- however, in rolling stock and in pay
ments for real estate Exactly 900, 600
lives of humanity were conveyed across
the East river in 1887 without a single
life being lost. That is true enough TO
be startling, and startling enough to be
untrue. However, it is truel When you
consider that for part of the day trains
are running but minute and a half
apart, and carrying IL, 900 passengers per
hour, and that even at the dullest part
Of the day they are but couple of min
utes apart, this record is simply amaz-
York Mail and Express.
superstittons of the Chinese.
A girl who is partaking of the last meal
she is to eat il her fathers house previous
m beT- arroce st rha IA 1a with hoy