The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-02-06

ed on their journeys Surprising, further,
that the remaining passengers are so tortu-
each journey. The time of traveller Ii
worth, at least, the lockers tanner an
hour" The value of the minutes thus
wasted would total up to considerably over
E1.500000 a year. With this money one
could run all the theaters free of charge.
maintain all the public libraries, provide free
baths and washhouses in every parish, keep
up the parks, give good music in them, and
light them up brilliantly every night with
electric light; and then one would have
enough left over to give comfortable nome
to every struggling person in London, invite
every reader of the Daily Mail to ban
quet, and keep oneself from penury.
The present state of affairs IS too bad to
last. A few years will effect great change.
Soon traffic will so increase that the great
trunk railways will have to provide over
head tracks above their ordinary lines, for
their suburban traffic.
In our underground railways electricity
will take the place of steam. and COM
nonsense plan of ventilating by sucking
out foul air viii have been devised while
lines underneath the present Will make 1t
possible to get from WandswOrth to HollO-
way, or from Richmond to Lewisham, in
ten minutes The horse will have vanished
from the streets Trolley cars bright light
and swift, will run along all the main
thoroughfares, and will stretch their steel
Tunbridge Wells to St Adams and from
Southend to Walton-on-Thames. The
wearied mother, wishing to take her little
one for a breath of fresh air on heath or
common, will no longer have TO spend an
hour or two boxed up in cold, dark and
uncomfortable cars. If she walks a few
find constant succession of well-cushioned
and easy-running trolley trans in which
for one fare-possibly 2d-she can be con-
veyed the eight or ten miles to a public
pleasure ground. She may have to change
once, at a central terminus, or possibly
twice, but no more; she need not study
timetables to learn her way
1t will be no longer possible to lose oneself
in London. The lady out for her afternoons
shopping will be able to make her purchases
in Victoria street. take afternoon tea with
a friend at Blackheath, visit an invalid at
Wandsworth mollify her mother-in-lav- at
Hampstead by brief call ana yet be home
to Finchey in ample time to superintend
the arrangement of dinner as il comes I'm
from the local cooking center. The streets
viii no longer be crowded save with foot
passengers The numbering vans and wagons
that now Obstruct our roads and fill the
air with din will have disappeared. The
great electric tram lines will never be still.
At nighttime, when the one-minute RELAYS
of passenger cars have been reduced to a
half-hour service. the lines will be used for
goods traffic. The sleepy WAGNER who
now brings his loads of cabbages ami fruit
from HounslOw or Enfield viii be replaced
by the alert trolley man, who, with hand
on the brake and eye watching the track,
will carry the loads TO their destination in
one-tenth of the time, q twentieth Of the
cost and with none Of the noise of now
All goods traffic will be done between mid
night and a. N. With the effacement Of
the horse, London streets will no longer be
allowed to remain in their present dirty
state and Mr.. Ruskin's ideal Of roadways
as clean as the decks of rnan-of-war will
be almost realized. London viii then with
its boulevards, its fresh atmosphere and
its trolleys, be the most delightful city in
the world.
It's all dream, too good to be true"
Mr. Stay-at-Home murmurs. Wake up, Mr..
Stay-at-Home. Shake from your coat the
cigarette ash that gathered there al the
music hall last night. What you declare i'm
possible, other cities are on the high road
to accomplishing. London alone lags be-
hind, thanks to the blindness and supine-
ness OF its local authorities.