The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-26
MODERN STREET RAILWAY
AMERICA,S LFADERSHIP IN THIS
 IND USTRP.

AMERICAS LFADEHSHLP IN IHLS
 INDUSTRY.
 Municipal Ownership at Home and Abroad - Comparative Figures of Trackage and Travel in Europe and This Country-An Interesting Paper Prepared for the American Street Rail- way Association by MT. Robert P. Porter.
 The modern street railway, in it's stu pendous extension, has not only opened it's network of lines over the modern cieies of the world, but of late years has invaded and brought about marvellous transformation in the oldest and most historic cities. In the ancient city of Kioto, Japan, which celebrated a few years ago the eleventh century of its existence, was whisked on modern tramway almost to the gates of the pal ace, which for centuries contained within it's walls the mikados of that old dynasty. Thus has the nation which
  ance of the Barbarian Black Ship" calmly appropriated this latest inven- tion of the western world, and the whir of the trolley car has become common along the narrow streets of these hives of Asiatic industry. Street railways have been planned, or are at this mo- ment actually transporting the tourist amid the orange-colored masonry of the Egyptian Pyramids, and wa may yet hear of electric roads which will take the sight-seer up one side of those mas sive piles of stone and down the other. Trolley wires have been strung amid the architectural splendors of bygone ages in Rome. There is line crossing the ruin of the Capitol, while the an- cient Roman Forum has become junction for two street-car lines. The modern street railway connects Athens with the port of Piraeus. The hills and hollows of Constantinople and Edin- burgh have been bridged by cable cars, and old Budapest, on the Danube, once the point of attack for the infadel host advancing on Europe, has become the Mecca of peripatetic municipal commit tees studying the relative merits of street railway systems.
 The street railways of large city come in contact with every inhabitant from one hundred and fifty to two hum dred times every year. and for this req son the question of rapid transit is a topic in which all are interested. For example, the Greater London, with it's six million of population and network of suburban lines, metropolitan under ground railways, tramways and exten- sive omnibus systems, transports an- nually over a thousand million human beings, and this is how it is done:
 Traffic in London
 Passengers Ten main lines of railways
 convey in London. ......... 400, ,000,0 ,000 Metropolitan and Metropoli-
 tan District, North London,
 and other underground rail-
 ways t50, OOo, 900 Omnibuses .....................32 325, GOO, 900 Tramways ..225 900, 900 Total traffic per annum.. i, 100, 900, 900 Greater New York, with half the pop ulation, and without figuring the mill lions that enter by railway, by ferry and by steamboats, carries annually, relatively speaking, even greater number of street railway passengers:
 New York City.
 Passengers. Elevated railways. 1S3, coo, 900 Street surface railways. ..... .400,000,000 IOldl DOS, ,UUU,UUu
 Brooklyn.
 Passengers. Elevated railways. ......... 46,000,000 Street surface railways. 200, 900 900 OLal .lfo,UUU,uVU Grand total New York City
 and Brooklyn. ....... S29, 900 O00 London and New York handle annu- ally an army of passengers exceeding in numbers the present entire popula- tion of the earth. The next cities in or der of importance are Paris and Berlin, though their street railway and omn- bus traffic combined is far behind that of New York. The latest report for Paris is as follows:
 Compagnie Generale. Passengers. Tramways ....,................. 95355,59l Omnibuses .....................l3 .l35, 379 66o Steam motors. s................. 15, 635
 246, ,o4O, ,S91 Add for other tramways. =. 54 900 Add for suburban railways. 100, 900 Making round total of
 say 400, o00, 900 Cost per passenger from .... $50 to 3.75 Cost per passenger for Metro
 politan railway of New
 Wages in Paris are about half what they are in New York.
 The Siemens and Halske electric tramways put in operation April 15, 1896, carried 9,S35, 1894 passengers up to December 31. The total number of pas- sengers carried during 1896 is. conse- quently 311 ,216955, as against 270, ,049, ,481 in 1895, or an increase of 41167.474 At N the time of the last census, in Decem- Der, 1895, the population of Berlin was 1677 BOA inhabitants.
 Paris is adding to her street railway aJ1;t hoe j,1et