Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-28

daring would-be passenger signals to them,
the ark on wheels stops with world
weary heave, the driver lets go of a strap.
thus permitting the door to swing open.
The passenger climbs up steep steps tot
ters through the stage to the front end
and drops the fare into a little glass box.
When any one wishes to alight,~the signal
Is given by the simple and highly up-to-
date method of pulling strap which is
attached to the drivers leg.
The writer remembers that 1t used to be
the particular proud privilege and joy of
him and his companions a quarter of q
century ago to tail on to that strap In a
body and pull the drivers leg till he be-
came frantic with mingled pain and rage.
And yet any real New Yorker Will tell
the stranger with moving pride that things
change so fast in this town that even an
old resident cannot keep track of the
changes.
Marvellous Traffic Squad.
One of the things about which the me-
tropols has boasted lately till all the coun-
try is ringing with it is the traffic squad
special body OF mounted police detailed
to regulate the street traffic in the busy
thoroughfares. London has had traffic
regulation by It's police for more years
than any one can remember. Paris and
Berlin and Vienna and st. Petersburg all
have their traffic squads and have had them
for generations. New York has had its
squad less than two years.
Another amusing thing about the great
city is the everlasting attempt to cor
rect the bridge congestion" The bridge
is, of course, the great Brooklyn suspension
bridge.
The bridge congestion is caused by the
simple fact that something like eighteen
trolley lines all converge at the bridge and
try TO deliver all the cars carried over
eighteen tracks to the one single track that
leads across the big structure. Naturally
there is congestion.
Every few months a commission Is ap-
pointed by the mayor, or the aldermen,
or the bridge authorities. or the board of
health, or the police, or some other of New
Yorlls countless bosses and managers to sit
down at great expense and length and de-
bate solernnly over this deep and abstruse
problem: How can we make the water
run out of the narrow end of funnel as
fast as we can put it in the wide end?"
The nearest that any of the great think
ers of New York ever came to a solution
was when recent bridge commissioner
announced in report, after much intri-
cate thought that 1.-The bridge is so crowd
ed in what are called the rush hours
because SO many people go across
at that particular time"
The bridge is case in point in another
way. The simple and untutored stranger
naturally expects to see an imposing en-
trance, possibly marble, with noble flights
of steps and great columns leading to the
splendid arches and the daring giant swing
of the mighty cables. Instead. he finds a
huge square opening leading into a damp
place OF tracks and gloom. Every little
while another bit of corrugated sheet iron
Is riveted on here or there. The whole
looks like the abode OF house wreckers or
wholesale junk dealers who have built the
place up precariously bit by bit as they got
handy bits of old metal.
Corrugated Iron Art.
Corrugated iron Is favorite art material
in New York. There is municipal and