The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-03-14
SOME T,00AI MATTERS.

it is to be hoped satisfactory. solution, let the
Council and the Aldermen tu-n their attention
to other very important and pressing matters.
One of the most pressing IS street railway
matters. We entirely agree with Councilman
Swain, that the public is not DESTROYS of go
ing to extremes; but the public is DESTROYS of
doing something, and even that is
of the Councils during the past few
years. There are certain things that must be
done before agitation and i'll feeling will cease
There is no disposition on the part OF the
people to be unfair or unjust but there is
dispo sition to see that the company fairly
lives up to its charter. The Mayor stated
that the special committee had found nine
distinct points in which the street-railway
company is and has been violating its charter.
That is notorious, and has been for years.
What have the Councils done about it, and
what o they propose to do about it7 Double
ended cars must be provided, at least upon
the heavily travelled routes. On these routes
conductors must be provided; the fare-carrier is
The f'bob-tai" conductorless cars, with the
fare-carriers may answer on the less thickly
travelled routes, and the public might tolerate
them; but they m ust ego" from the popular
lines of travel, where they are an irritation
and an outrage. Conductors needed on
these lines for various other duties than the
collection of fares. They are neeeed to look
after passengers, to see after their comfort.
to know when to stop the cars and when TO
start them, without endangering life and
limb, as at present whenever the "bob-tails"
are crowded.
Besides these changes and improvements
the odious nuisance the town disgrace, the
transfer-car, with its attendant turntables,
must 60 The people of Indianapolis would be
warranted in smashing that transfer nuisance
to pieces, or in burning it to the ground in
many other places that would have been the fate
of long ere this To think OF city of 125, 900
people allowing a structure of that sort to
usurp place in the center of its principal
business thoroughfare cannot be character
lied by any ordinary language. If the
company has the right to maintain the trans
fer-car there for its own convenience, or
for the convenience of it's patrons it would
have the right to build fve-story brick block
on the site, and the only wonder is that it has
not done so; for certainly the Councils would
not interfere with it. If the company wants
a waiting-room or an Office Washington
street, or anywhere else, let it build one or
rent one, and not take up the center of the
busiest street with its ill-smelling disease
breeding, horrible caravansary.
Then the company should be compelled to
lay street rails at or below grade, and to take
up abandoned rails wherever these may be.
Thousands of dollars worth of damages have
been suffered by reason of the rails above
grade, and the abandoned rails on streets
which have been pre-empted to keep rival
companies from securing routes, when com:
petition threatened. Then the poor, miserable,
little, over-worked, shamefully abused mules
should be withdrawn and their places taken
by stalwart, we'll kept and well conditioned
horses, so that the street car transportation
might be in some degree consistent with the
demands of the city and the necessities of
travel.
But there is more than the street railway to
look after. The people of Indianapolis are
already getting their spring taste of the
horrible dust. The clouds now flying in the
streets are harbingers of the long dry, hot
dusty summer that is coming. What is being
goods of merchants and to the furniture of
householders is incalculable, to say nothing
of the horrors of the streets and the dirti-
ness and dinginess of the city. What is to
be done about laying thedusta 1t can be laid;
il is entirely practicable. All that is needful
is the desire on the part of the Council and
the ability to take hold of the problem.
Then there are the public parks, especially
the Circle, and the Blind Asylum COW pasture.
The condition of the Circle, with its express
wagons, its filth, its congregation of loungers,
it's hideous, smoky street fires, is a blistering
disgrace to the city and standing shame to
the municipal authorities. The Circle, the
central point in the capital city of the State,
turned into public stable-yard, and not
member Of the Council or of the Board of
Aldermen with pride or spine enough to raise
a voice in protest or to give vote to end the
scandal. What is the reasonG Last January
the Mayor called attention to It, and there the
matter dropped. Not even the State of Indi-
ana has the right to maintain a
cow pasture in the center of the
city, and the Blind Asylum cow lot should be
speedily abolished. Here practical things
to engage the attention of the Councils. They
have to do with the health, comfort, cleanli-
ness and appearance of the city. With
smokeless natural gas to take the place of