The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-10-25

do Tor Porto R1eo, changlng the pusi- ness. and social customs of the island making plantations pay where cultivation has languishea for years, is an interesting example of the industrial occupation of our island dependency. Trolley cars bug zing busily through the Plaza Principe indicate pretty clearly the change that is coming over the face of sleepy old West Indian communities with the advent of the Yankee
 Ponce's trolley line joins the residen- tiakpart of the city, built where the early inhabitants fled to escape the visits or the dreaded buccaneers, with the Playa
 or Port where major part of the mod ern business of the inhabitants is carried on. Of total population of about 32,0OO not more than 5000 live in the Playa-a condition which easily accounts for the fact that in the first year of it's opera tion the new road has been favored with a passenger business that could hardly have been picked up in a northern city Of the same size in the states; but the Porto Rican people are of the kind who prefer riding to walking
 III IatI all WHO COulQ dllOIu u . have ridden. Up to two years ago the cof- fee, sugar and tobacco growers, when they came down from the hills to trans act business in town. as well as all the local merchants with their clerks and as- sistants-used to drive from Ponce to the Playa and back in vehicles that closely resembled the Yankee carryall. These al- ways went crowded-oftentimes uncom- fortably so. Meantime the laborers-the coffee piekers orange sorters and other workers whose means would not admit of the expense of the carriage ride-would trudge gaily up and down the long road
 barefooted and happy. More steadily drowsing down from, town to port went the odd bullock carts laden with bags and bales. Amongst these the naked chil- dren. who are now required by law to go about properly clad after they reach the age of five years lodged recklessly and with apparent impunity. The whole pro- cession was along the old white military road bordered with stately cocoanut palms and the searlet-fowering and we'll named 'flamboyant" trees-just as many an American or English road is bordered with elms-which Is at once the thorough fare and playground of Ponce.
 Such is a picture of the old times which extended up to the American invasion. Today, however, the most evident sign of the new regime in Porto Rico is the busy trolley ear, rushing every ten min utes along the road. The new line, which is one of the series operated in various parts of Uncle Sans domain continental and insular by the Stone-Webster man. agement of Boston, follows the path talk en by General Miles and his soldiers in the very beginning of the American in- vasion Although originally designed for
 the convenience of Spanish troops in
 queling insurrections, the old road is
 here practically a long village street for Porto Rico is a very much inhab- ited island-almost as thickly peoped as
 Massachusetts or Rhode Island Peering among the tall piam trees and surround
 ed by the lesser "famboyantsp the cot
 tages of the poorer people, often the same tyre of matched cabins once oc- l cupied by the native Indians whom the | Spanish occupation so rapidly annihilated. | line both sides of the roadway, separated | from 1t by ditch, or gutter, some four l feet deep and crossed here and there by small plank bridges. The ditch itself is
 necessary to carry off the overflow of the 1 little Portugues river which does it's best l in rainy weather to turn the country sur rounding the Playa into an uninhabitable strip of marshland,
 f Despite this temporary marsh, however. the climate is the best in the Antilles.
 More than that, 1t has been found per- fecly healthful for Americans provided
 they take plenty of exercise and avoid
 unfamiliar fruit, so that as winter re- sort Porto Rico in general and Ponce in particular is undoubtedly destined to
 grow steadily in popularity The city it. self naturally centre for the develop ing sugar. coffee and tobacco interests of the southern part of the island is po- tentially of the very first importance as a point of disembarking for tourists In the interior of the island there are fa- nous white sulphur springs which only await American enterprise to attract
 thousands of people annually
 I he work of constructing the electric line between Ponce and the Playa was
 undertaken on the first of December, 1901. The cars began running on May 1,
 1902 and since that time they have car ried daily average of several thousand passengers. The only problem, which has been successfully met with, has been to supply sufficient transportation facilities to meet the unexpected demand. This passenger traffic has naturally been the chief concern of the company up to this time, and the old-fashioned sleepy-lools-
 ing carts still carry the freight on its
 way back and forth from city to port;
 they are, however, destined in all prob- ability to be supplanted by freight-carry- | ing electrics.
 Already the passenger carriages, that only year ago went rattling along the
 ancient roadway with all the speed that
 the people of the tropics know so well how to get out of their crazy little horses have practically disappeared. And if one ventures forth it no longer collects all the passengers aboard that can be crowd ed into it's palsied seats at a reduced fare
 for every additional passenger. Under the Spanish regime the drivers of these car riages could shift on the passengers all responsibility for accidents and for that reason careless driving was the rule rath- CT than the exception. The driver who
 was in a hurry-and they were nearly al-
 ways in a hurry-could afford to take such chances as, all questions of human ity aside, are quite impossible to the
 management of an American line of troll ley cars. The naked brown children who
 play about the white road are therefore safer, since the advent of the American trolley car, than they have ever been in their naked brown lives. And the same is of course true of other pedestrians.
 many of whom, indeed can now afford
 the cheaper rates of rapid transit. A cir
 constance that certainly adds to this se- curity is the presence among the con ductors and motormen of many educated young Spaniards, among whom service of this character has become distinctly pop
 ular On the cars you will find several young graduates of Sianish universities | and at least one graduate of Columbia university, New York young man who | is not merely serving on the platform as vacation experience but who hopes to rise to an important position later on. The new line was built by native labor
 with few imported Italians, whose pres-