Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-10-11
LoNDoN,s UNDERGROUND ROADS.
M Investments and Dis
agreeable Means of Transit.

Improbable nf Investments and Dis
agreeable Means of Transit.
From the Chicago ST1bes-Herald
John Fowler, with a small syndicate as
his hackers, laid down forty-three years
ago an underground line of railway from
Paddfngton station of the Great Western
railway to a point near Kings Cross Of the
Great Northern, thus joining those two
great streams Of traffic 1t was not, how
ever, until twenty years later that the real
basis of the preseft system was laid down
by the Metropolitan Railway Company.
This was what is now known as the elmer
circle" Some time afterward the Metro
politan District Railway Company was
formed and the scheme then became of a
more comprehensive character. Neither of
these companies have benefited their share
holders to any appreciable degree The
Metropolitan commenced paying per cent
dividend, but this dwindled down to 7-S
in 1882 and has remained about that figure
SINCE The Metropolitan District Company
never paid anything but a fraction, and
since 1888 has paid no dividend whatever
The nominal capital of the Metropolitan is
SIS, 425, the number of miles in work being
thirty-eight. The gross receipts average
s., 900, 4tiO and the net receipts 81 90, 900
The working expenses per mile amount to
81. 100000. while the revenue per mile is
s91, 40. AS for the District Company, it's
nominal capital is only s36,57o. and its
length of way nineteen miles. Its gross
receipts average $l3S5, coo, and its net re-
oeipts 81, OS6OU0.
The discomforts and dangers of this
means of lccomotion can never be estimated
by any one who has not made a trip on the
underground. At such central stations as
Cover street, where the traffic is great and
the rails are laid down more than thirty
feet below the earth's surface, it is i'm
possible to breathe without ill effects
There is no adequate outlet for the volumes
of sulphurous smoke, which pour from the
tunnels the trains pass through, and ac-
cordingly the station is filled with noxious
fumes. Even in the hottest weather it is
better to keep the windows of the railway
carriages closed, but when the carriage is
crowded, as at certain times of the day it
always is, to excess, this is obviously i'm
possible. Leading medical experts have
given it as their distinct opinion that the
underground railways have been directly
the cause of a large number of new dis
eases Those who constantly use the "un-
foreground" for SO the lines of both COM
panies Familiarity alluded to, develop
ailments of the heart or lungs while the
eyes also frequently become seriously af-
fected. To the stranger the effect of
journey on either the Metropolitan or Dis
trict railway is singularly painful; it pro-
duces headache and nausea, and affects the
chest and lungs in marked degree.
To stranger, the difficulties of travel by
the underground" are almost insuperaDle
The lines are laid down in circles-thus
there are an inner. middle and an outer
circle. The inner circle embraces the city
proper, and runs from Aldgate round to
Aldgate again. But it is on the outer circle
that the uninitiated traveller is most likely
to go wrong. He may be within five or ten
minutes walk of the point he desires to
arrive at, and not knowing this, he goes to
the Metropolitan or District railway and
asks if he can book for such and such a
station. The clerk always replies that he
can. and the uniucky wight is put on board
train which will carry him round the
whole Metropolitan area and take an hour
In the doing of it.