Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-10-25
AIR MOTORS NOW IN USE
The Present Equipment of the lexington
and BM Reads
Humane Society Agents Have 9
Promising Fieia for Active Work
i'm Thi. kDirA felton,.
Passengers on thg 81 ington and Belt

Uses Of those corpofatiohs, are being fire.
quently heard of latk to intimate that the
Representatives of 1.-THE Humane Society
should pay official attention to the cond-
ton of the stock on those lines. The horses
on both roads have been growing thinner
steadily for many months and there have
been practically no requirements with
fresh stock. Whenever questions are asked
of the drivers or conductors on the horse
cars as to the probability of the advent of
better equine motive power the answer in
variably is that the companies soon ex-
pect to install rapid transit system, and
it Is not thought advisable to expend much
If any money on new horses. This same
reply has been given to public inquiries
the subject for the past three or four years,
with the consequence that it IS standing
joke among the regular patrons of the two
lines that the routes are already on an air
power basis, the wretched animals now
forced to haul the cars being facetiously
dubbed "air motors"
This morning. during period when traf-
fic was unusually heavy. a pair of horses
was hitched to an incoming lexington car
on the New York avenue line whose ap-
pearance Immediately suggested the need
of a veterinary surgeon or the glue-maker.
The driver of the Immediately sug-
gested that a relief expedition should be
organized to insure his making round trip,
and bitterly commented on the inadequacy
of his whip which, he said was not heavy
nor long enough to insure a safe passage
to the Pennsylvania station and back. A
passenger who stood the front plat
form Of this car and who later in the day
recounted his experiences to a Star re-
porter, declares that the spectacle of those
two animals hauling the heavy car along
the wet and slippery tracks ptiabe
in the extreme. When the car turned into
9TH street from New York avenue going
south the conductor told the driver to make
good time the behipd
schedule. The driver Immediately began
TO ply his whip more vigorously than be-
fore. until a block or so further down 9Th
street one of the horses showed visible
signs of collapse. He leaned up against his
mate and the driver offered liberal odds
on the proposition that he would not make
the round trip, and was willing to wager
even money that he would not reach the
southern terminus.
These horses worked two round trips
at stretch, followed by an interval of
two trips. This gives them about six
turns i day. On all branches of both
roads the hauling is very heavy. The
Belt road contains several long, difficult
hills, and on both branches of the Ecking
ton IL, road there ne. ar, are exceedingly steep
Louisiana avenue hill, near the Police
Court, is known as one of the most trying
ascents in town. while on the G street
line Capitol Hill taxes the powers of the
weak horses to the utmost. Two hill
horses are required on the Louisiana ave-
nue. hill, and even with the four animals
Juggling to the limit of their strength emp
ty cars barely hauled up the grade
Complaints are occasionally made by in
dfgnant passengers Whose pity for the ami
mails and contempt for 1.-THE company are
aroused by these hourly exhibitions of
cruelty but a rule it, has been difficult
to secure prosecutions, for the reason that
the company invariably makes the excuse
as noted above, that the present conditions
are only temporary and that the horses
will soon be entirely suppanted by some
mechanical device. This same excuse has
been made for many months, and mean
while private individuals, drivers of vehi-
cles whose horses have been CALLED winded
or are harness sore have been hauled into
court and fined for gross cruelty to ami
mails. 1t is common observation among the
passengers on these roads that a keen
scrutiny of the animals by the proper Off
Gals. without regard to, the rapid transit
promises of the companies, would result in
the condemnation of fully 30 per cent of
the animals now in use on these lines.
Drivers and other representatives of the
companies, when approached on the sub
ject, insist that the horses are well fed,
though this proposition finds few believers
and is discredited by the appearance of
every team of horses on the two lines.
1t was suggested this morning by one of
the passengers on the car mentioned pre-
Viously that the air motors in use
on the lexington and Belt roads, unlike
those approved by the Commissioners for
the rapid transit equipment, surely re-
q'sAe inter-route recharging stations, such
as Receiver Schoepf desires to establish
along the lines of the two roads. 1t is the
unanimous opinion of the observing pas
senSers on these routes that well-supplied
feed boxes placed between the tracks at
quarter-mile intervals would materially in
crease the chances of certain round trips,
though doubtless the horses, it is suggest
ed, would be so attracted by the unusual
spectacle of good fodder that the progress
hn ly he IA