The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-17
NO SUNDAY STREET CARS
NONE WAS RUN IN TORONTO YESTER-
DAY, AS EXPECTED.
Despite the Favorable Vote, 1t Is
Doubtful if the People Will Get
What They Demanded.

TORONTO, Ontario. May 16.-Notwith-
standing the fact that the citizens OF To-
ronto voted in favor of the running Of
street cars on Sunday at yesterdays cleo
ton, the cars did not run to-day and there
is a question whether they will run at all.
The bylaw under which yesterdays vote
was taken has yet to be read a third time
in the City Council and this is not likely
to be done until a legal point raised by
the clerical party has been settled. Tn re-
suit of the balloting yesterday was:
For Sunday cars .16,433
Against Sunday cars
Majority for cars 479
This is the outcome of the most bitter
campaign that ever has stirred Toronto.
The churches took sides and went into the
fray in dead earnest. Episcopalians and
Roman Catholics favored Sunday cars, but
the MethodiStS, PreSbyteridnS and BaptiStS
opposed them and fought a remarkable
series of battles for their principles. These
three religious denominations denounced the
street ears from the pulpit, organized public
meetings, turned over the church, offer
tories to the cause and denounced every
supporter of the Sunday movement as a
son of the devil and a child of perdition.
The one idea that they all advanced was
that if cars ran in Toronto the city would
soon have a Chicago Sunday, and the force
Of Imagination could no further go in pic
turing a horrible future.
When the Toronto Electric Street-car
Company purchased the old street-car COM
pany and obtained a new franchise one of
the conditions obtained by the company
and imposed by the Ontario Legislature
was that the question of the running OF
cars on Sunday should be submitted to the
voters of Toronto once every three years,
and if the vote was in favor of the com
pany cars should be run on Sunday, sub
ject to certain conditions imposed by the
mayor and City Council.
The two principal conditions We're, first,
that the cars should run in the streets
nnma6 nv the. pifX Qn0in9ar me Oh1eCt OF
this was to obtain for the back streets and
less remuneratiVe districts a full service.
company should be employed for more than
six days out of the seven, inSurlng for each
employe one days rest.
The first vote was taken in 1891, when the
proposal to run the cars on Sunday was de-
feated by two thousand votes. IhlS was
brought about by the general apathy of the
public and the zeal of the Methodist and
Presbyterian clergy, who drive the hocks,
particularly the women, who have votes
on this question. to the polls. During the
following three years the inconvenience or
no cars on Sunda was increasingly telt,
but very little systematic effort was MADE
to oppose the influence of those VINO would
be called in England ''the diSsenters, and
the result was that the Sunday running was
defeated by nine hundred votes.
During the past three, years a great
change took place iii public opinion. Not
only was there l glowinS demand Tor the
convenience of Sunday locomotion, but the
business men of the city, felt that toronto
cars. It was felt that Sunday excursions
would come from Buffalo, Detroit, .Cleve-
and-the border cities-if the eXcursionists
knew that they could move about the
streets on the cars. This, it was argued,
would be better for the city than for 1t to
bear the name of Toronto the Good. AS a
result the board of trade and merchants
generally worked on behalf of the Sunday
movement.
the struggle was to be decisive. 1t was
stubbornly contested and intense feeling
was brought into play. The action OF the
''dissenting'' churches stirred the Roman
Catholics and Episcopalians to such a de-
gree that outsiders, by a sort of tacit under
church neople to carry on the war.