The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-12-11
UNDERGROUND.
The Strange Life Led by Some New
York Workers.
THEY ARE THE MEN WHO LOOK
AFTER THE CABLE.

Cnoer the streets are Miles OF Passages,
With Rooms in Which Men Work, Eat
and SIeep-Many New Emp1oyments
Created by the Cable Railroads. Trip
Beneath the Tracks.
Do you know that enough men work.
sleep and eat under the cable slot to in
habit small village? Beneath the sur
face Of the street there is a strange colony
which pass the lives of moles. The cable
cars rattle and bang above their heads all
day long, and the din of whirrlng ropes
or wire and the chatter of the grips fill
their ears. all day and all night. Those
who dwell beneath the cable slot know
no such things as the risings and the set
tings OF the sun. They are on watch
twelve hours at time, straining their
eyes to detect flaws in the complicated
mechanism by which you are taken from
the Battery to Harlem. When anything
happens to the cable the news Is whis-
pered from telephones buried in the
earth, or is told by pressure of button
in some subterranean cavity.
Hundreds of men dive into manholes
to oil the mechanism of the roads of the
Metropolitan Street Railway Company, a
scores sit in tunnels watching and wait
ing q chance to report some mishap.
New trades with strange names have
sprung up since cable railroading became
an industry. There are "oable watch
ers, - "sheave pit tenders y gypsy men"
and all manner of workmen who are
proud OF their titles and look at you in
mild surprise II you do not seem to I'M
derstand their interesting professions.
Beneath the cobble stones in the neigh
borhood of the power house at Seventh
avenue and Fiftieth street, there is a
strange subterranean life. AS you pass
the Sixth avenue end of the power house
you will, if you lock through the win
steel cables. The cables, after they leave
the swiftly revolving drums, are carried
into tunnel.
You leave the sunlight at this point
and go with me in a journey beneath the
surface of the earth. We find ourselves
TIA ~ lOAR pGhsbtsSO bCLCEO uS sbI6eCIl6b d
line of electric lights. which grow small
er as the eye follows Them until they seem
like tiny stars set in the top of the dark
archway.
IN CABLE LANE.
The entrance to the tunnel is guarded
by man who looks neither to the right
nor to the left. No one is permitted to
talk to him. He is watching two great
ropes Of wire which are flying past him.
Two other cables rest motionless upon
their rider wheels. The guard of the en-
trance Of this lower world stands there
for houls before he is relieved He Is
watching the cables. If he sees that a
strand has broken from it's cable, or that
the great rope of wire has broken in any
place, it is his duty to report the defect
by giving signal. The cables whirl past
him like writhing serpents
We go from the faint daylight. which
creeps between buttresses of masonry, to
the half darkness of the narrowing pas
sageway beyond. Every foot of the cable
which takes cars from Fiftieth street to
10th street, and back again, is inspected
by this silent watcher many, many times
a day. Every time he sees place where
the cable has been spliced he touches
button which registers The fact that the
section where the rope has been repaired
is In good order and shows no sign of
having given away If any accident
should OCCUR at one of these spliced places
and the register showed that this splice
had not been duly reported, there would
be cable watcher with his occupation
gone.
We are walking now through the pas
sageway, the Lane of the Whirling Cable.
The tunnel is twelve feet below the sur
face of Fifty-h first street and few feet
south Of the middle of the thoroughfare.
1t is too far down for any sound from the
word above to reach our ears. The tun-
mel is about six feet high. A tall man
with high hat could never pass through
it. Above us is the damp arch; beneath
our feet an asphalted floor. covered with
tar and oil.
On either side are carrier wheels, thir-
Uy-EVe IeeU apart, over WHICH bno CABLES
are whirling The wire ropes are as
black as night. They are coated with a
composition of linseed oil, pitch and some
kind of dressing of secret formula,
mixed together. From all iron tank in
the middle of the tunnel this mixture
drips from the end of a pipe, attached to
the iron tank. The smell of the oil and
tar ladens the air The stuff clings to
the feet of those who pass along, Drops
of moisture fall from the curve of ma
sonny above.
A DEN OF WHEELS.
The passage is four feet wide. It Is
well to keep in. the middle of the way.
though, or you will fall against this street
girdling rope. Those who walk in the
tunnel wear caps and rubber coats and
heavy boots. Up and down the passage
way 20 the men who oil the drive wheels.
There is barely room for two men to pass
each other. 1t Is an uncanny place, this
dimly lighted lane, full of the droning of
swiftly revolving strands of wire and the
hmm of wheala