The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-01-27
CROWDED LIKE CATTLE
OUTRAGEOUS TREATMENT OIL PA
TRONS BY STREET-CAR COMPANY.
No Trailers on Six-o'CIOck Evening
Cars-Unsanitary Conditions Caused
by This State OF Affairs.

Among the staid residents who patronize
the North Pennsylvania-street car line ono
would scarcely expect to find so much
savage resentment at the manner the Citi-
zens' Street-railroad Company is ~treating
its patrons. Indignation meetings are held
every night on the cars which go north
between $50 and $50 o'clock in the evening.
and one passenger, a deacon in the church,
volunteered the other night TO be one of q
party to tie Werner and Mckee to the rear
platform and make them ride for two hours
on the car. This was suggested as a more
coEdign punishment than ducking them
both under the ice of the canal. The com
plants grow out OF the outrageous manner
in which the company has been crowding
the cars in the last year. The Pennsyl-
vania-street people are not alone in their
grievance for the same conditions prevail
over the entire city. Even on the College
avenue line, where the travel is perhaps
the heaviest in the city. few of the cars
going north in the neighbornoo,i of 6 O'Clock
have trailers, although as far back as five
years ago, when the patronage was far be-
low that of the present time, every car at
that hour of the day had a trailer.
on the North Pennsylvania-street line the
seating capacity of a car is about twenty
six. and the standing room capacity. by
crovding, is about equal to the seating
capacity. When there are fifty people on a
car it is uncomfortably crowded and yet
there has not been an evening in the last
six months when the 6 o'clock cars have
not had from sixty to eighty-four people
damned i'm like sardines. This has caused
much suffering to women passengers. The
conductors insist on taking on ex-arr mas
senger that is willing to dig his elbows
through the crowded mass or hang on to
the railing by a little finger. Oftentimes
there is a boy or two riding on the draw
bar back OF the rear platform, With sev-
enty-lVe people squeezed in the car the
conductor will shout crowd UP there d
little more"
1t has been frequently pointed out that
there is a great danger to health in such
unsanitary practice of crowding eighty-four
people into a space that can hardly contain
fifty. The transom windows are all closed
tight and this cold weather perhaps frozen
tgh making an intensely sitting and
poisonous atmosphere with the exhaiations
OF so many human beings. This is readily
apparent by poking ones head inside the
car door and catching a Whit of the air
after the ear has gone as far north as Six
teenth street.
On no occasion in the last SIX months.
so several observers say, has there been a
vacant seat on these cars when Sixteenth
street was reached. and this distance is
only a scant seven blocks from the terminus
of the line. Complaint after complaint has
been made to the streSt-car company. and
the company has been beseeched to put on
an occasional trailer. but the people on that
line have their first trailer yet TO see. This
same condition is TO he found on all the
other lines of the city. with the possible
exception of the Brightwood line.
Many OF the passengers are renewing the
talk prevalent some years ago. when there
was a threat. TO refuse TO pay fares unless
seats are provided. On several occasions
the passengers have taken the control o.
the car in their own hands. refusing 20 al
low any more people TO crowd on To
the car.