The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-09-22

USE FOR OLD STREET CARS.
a Cast-off Article That Serves Sew
eral Purposes Very Successfully.

a Cast-off Article That Serves Sew
eral Purposes Very Successfully.
From the Boston Transcript.
Scores of articles have been written
telling what becomes OF faithful WORKOUT
street car horses, but never yet has
newspaper stated where the old street
cars so to. Ask Brighton people. The
back yards out there are full of them,
and every day their number is increasing.
Strangers cannot understand how so
many of the cars have got off the track.
1t seems to them as if there must have
been tidal wave which washed all the
Cambridge cars into the next town.
There the Cambridge railroad" is
stranded, its coaches cast high and dry
against the side hills and into hollows.
What was to be done with the old cars?
the street railroad companies asked
themselves. 1t would cost more TO split
them up than they would fetch for
kindliIg. But Cambridge has bright
man named Sturteyant While the West
End was wondering if it would not be, the
cheapest way to take the cars out by the
shipload and dump them in some place
where they would not interfere with
navigation, he stepped in and bid for
thirty-six of them. He got thirty-six.
Then he adroitly put one in the back
y
children they might use it for a
playhouse. The children were
''tickled about 10 death" They sat
up nights to use the car, and never did
the advance coach of Barnums circus or
Sarah Bernhardt's car attract more at
tention. The little folks came for miles
and peered through the pickets of the
fence. Then they went home and leased
for street car, and kept right on teas
ing That first car was like the first boys
bicycle in an Out-of-theway town; it
created a demand. In few days Mr.
Sturtevant began to make sales. 1t got
so at last that when people ordered them
Mr.. Sturtevant would ask unconsCiOusly,
How many" as if he were selling eggs.
People with a large number of children
found that they must have several and
now one can tell about how many young
ones Brighton men have got by counting
the cars in his yard and allowing three
children to each car. Mothers found
| they could put their children inside, and,
shutting the door, leave them with feel
ing of security. 1t was the cheapest way
too in may cases to provide shade. The
| cars could be secured for s. apiece while
| not much stock was to be bought from
the nurseries for the money. Then, also,
| it was necessary to wait for trees to grow,
| and by the car method a whole nursery
was forthcoming. So the cars were Sc
! cured, dragged by horses into back yards,
and the trucks removed from under them.
| Then the brakes were taken OF, and now
there they lie like dismantled ships, ana
like ship something of sentiment clus-
tiers around them At first they were
thought of only as playhouses. One pur-
chaser concluded to turn his into hen
house. Another is a contractor and pays
his men every Saturday night from the
old car. Another, Kendrick street man,
T. A-r.A l,es- IL
his boy. One woman in Cambridge
wanted to buy ten cars, and wheeling
them down to the seashore, convert them
into cottages and lighthouses shifting
their position with the tide. She thought
that two or more could be joined together,
one to be used as sleeping car. But the
owners of the beach would not sell her
land for this purpose.
The contractor above mentioned is
building a basement under one of his cars
and is painting it. He talks of putting a
railing round the top and buying few
flowers, so that he can have a roof gar
den. More than one car has been pre-
empted for nocturnal "lunch" purposes.
The cats find them a glorious place to
snooze while the wind plays gently with
the quaint old dimity curtains One boy
has converted half OF his car into dove
house, The BARRIERS and Chinese laun-
drymen are now after cars, but
the supply is running short. If
they cannot get any they say that
they may buy watering carts and
put windows in them. One of the play
houses is used during the evening as a
club house by children of a larger growth
The lamps are handy, and when light is
necessary the blinds are pulled up to
shut off the, sight of card playing One
mother has rugged up cord running from
the house to the bell in the car, and can
call her offspring without moving Several
mothers have taken the straps out of the
cars and are using them to excellent ad-
vantage Some of the cars have colOred
glass, gothIc-shaped windows, and it is
rumored that the Salvation Army wants
one for a chapel