The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-11-29
Driven Under
the Drifts.
CITY'S SUBWAYS
VIII Vanish When Old Sol
Comes Out.

Worcester was at the mercy of the
snow all day yesterday and business
was practically at d standstill.
An occasional trolley car passed
through Main street during the after
noon, and towards evening cars on
other lines ran over a portion of the
routes, but they We're very spasmodic,
and the people walked to and from their
business.
The suburban trolley lines did moth
ing, and may not be able to run cars
on schedule time until the latter part
of the week. People walked yesterday
who never walked before, and silently
said things about the SNOW, the troll
ley companies and the Massachusetts
winters that would not look well in
print.
The merchants did practically no
business. When they and their clerks
reached their establishments yesterday
morning they found that huge drifts
almost completely buried up the en-
frances, and snow had even worked
itself through cracks into the stores.
Early in the day it seemed as if every
snow shovel in Worcester had been
pressed into service, and bank clerks,
not lifted anything heavier than a pen
or roll of dollar-a-yard silk in years,
worked away all the morning, and after
dinner had succeeded in digging bitches
through the drifts that in many places
We're six and eight feet high.
All the main thoroughfares We're
broken out before night. The city had
nearly 800 men and 100 teams at work
while the street railway companies had
/. H.
and scrapers assisted in the breaking
out. The city teams ceased work early
last evening, but the street railway
companies kept their men and machines
going during the night.
Eighteen inches of beautiful snow
was found upon the level In the SUI
burbs drifts of all shapes and sizes
were found Shortly before noon Old
Sol came out and raised the lively lit
tie balls Of mercury in the tubes of
the thermometer about town nearly to
50 degrees above zero, and then the
frozen flakes became a heavy mass,
and it proved to be a. back breaking job
to remove it. 1t settled down upon
the roofs of the buildings on the main
thoroughfares, and pedestrians had a
jolly time lodging the heavy masses
that both dropped from the dizzy
heights and We're propelled by the
ShOVelS or men on the roofs.
No snow was carted away during the
day. The gangs of shovelers found
that they had all they could do to cut
tunnels through the drifts and Worces-
ter's streets looked as if they had been
given over to the builders of small sub
ways and the city was as up-to-date as
progressive Boston.
How Wcrcester's citizens did long
for a subway Their trolley lines We're
helpless before midnight Saturday,
and yesterday they were tied up in a
perfect knot. President Dewey, of the
Consolidated, said yesterday that the
company was prepared for the snow,
but its sudden coming and its severity
surprised them. They did not recover
from their surprise during the entire
day,
The streets last evening were prac-
tically deserted at o'clock, but this
mornings sun and the thousands Of
shovels will undoubtedly place the city
where it was before the storm broke
with a fury that was unprecedented
lin the memory of the Oldest inhab-
liant" at this season of the year.
If Ella Wheeler Wilcox or any other
poet had had the audacity to spring
their verses about beautiful snow"
upon Worcester citizens yesterday
they would undoubtedly have found
rest beneath the drifts Snow is beau
tiful, the people said, to read about in
poetry, but is inches of it on a level is
very unpleasant to wade through
tunnel through and shovel off of side
walks.
If warmer weather. which has been
partially promised by the prophet
comes today, Worcester citizens will be
obliged TO construct gondolas, and for
a few days they may close their eyes
and say: AT last we have seen Ven
ice"
The suburban country is still buried
underneath the flakes, and it will be
at least As hours before it knows it.
self again. Many people could not get
to their work yesterday morning, and
several factories ran until noon time
with hardly one-third Of their usual
number OF employees.