The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-01-22
Five Hundred Victims of the
Highway juggernaut.
YEARLY KILLING IN new YORK
Names Of Men in the Sic Town Are
Conspicuous BY Their Absence
From the Tax Rolls.
Especial to The Free Press.1

|
New York, Jan. lS.-That death and
danger mrk at every turn of street
| traffic on this cOngested island is be-
ing impressed on all New Workers to-
Iday in the form of official accident re
lports for the old year, which have just
made public. With some five hundred
victims killed outright among the fifty
| five thousand casualties set down to
! street and railroad cars alone in
Greater New York for this one year, the
careless crowd of Gotham is being con,
fronted in practical way with its
most pressing problem of the new year.
When each day brings more than one
death and broken limb, each two days
a fractured skull and each week a
| leg on arm to be amputated in the
whirl about the tracks of this town,
| the added hazards of breakneck driv-
| ing, rush hour riots and theatre jams
are making the general list of the
city's slain and MANNED mount up into
the hundreds each day. One man in
| twenty is due to fall before the high
way juggernaut in the new year, the
figures show, unless speedy steps are
taken to succor the helpless way farers
at the crossings.
Their Absence Is Noted.
Though hundreds OF the wealthiest
men of town have just been shown to
be conspicuous through their absence
on the published tax rolls, crowds of
beleaguered millionaires are today
thronging the city offices in their an
nual attempt to belttle the value of
the triff'ling tracts of real estate which
they have been discovered to own. Last
year over a billion dollars in personal
tax assessments were vigorously sworn
off in one month by these thrifty citi-
zens and this year their anxiety for
tax immunity on tangible holdings is
even greater. As a moral measure OF
the citizenship of New York this an
nual tax list shrinkage is of much
more value than as any real index to
property possession. Though the in
dications today point to dwarfed in
crease over last year in taXible pro-
perty, observers are counting the pro-
cess more of a moral tnan physical
valuation. The pitch to which lean
year may work up the wealthy to
swear off taxes is well known in this
town where the spectacle is one of its
most shameful of the year
Army of "Chair Warmers"
In the height of the cold wave from
the west pitiless crusade against
'chair warmers" has been undertaken
today by the management of one OF
the older hotels here. By placard, sug-
geston and even by force whole de-
tachments of the professional lobby
loungers are being sent into the cold
outer world for no other reason than
that they cumber the places intended
for the paying visitors of the establish
ment. While this movement is being
viewed with alarm by the army of
genteel indigents, whose principal daily
function is to protect lobby settles from
the cold, the general travelling and
paying public is mailing it with JOY.
DR.. Bulls Bravery.
That wrangle of doctors should
have obscured the splendid spectacle
of DR.. Bulls fight for life even for
day is being sadly regretted among
the family and friends of the heroic
surgeon today. Now that the red
tape of professional etiquette has been
adjusted, however, the public continues
to watch with unfagging interest this
and professional pluck. Months ago
the newspapers set a death watch"
over the distinguished patient whom
the very science he eXcelled in had
given up. Each night reporters have
waited hour after hour for the last
news from the sick room and the Bull
"obit," ready set, has stood at hand
to be slid into the presses at a sec
ond's notice Each day New Workers
have scanned their papers for the UNI
welcome news and each day few
lines of type have recorded only a
daily bulletin of unchanged condition.
After such brave struggle the final
news will strike the public all the
harder, if it comes at all.
Tricks of the Taxicab.
With two ordinances introduced be-
fore the alderman today calling for a
square deal from the treacherous taxi
cab, the people of Gotham have a last
tackled one of the worst public pests
that has descended upon Manhattan
Island in years. To risk life and
limb in these noisy, malodorous con-
veyances New Workers have long OBJ
jected to paying the face value of
their erratic clock dials. Slippery as
phalt untitled by equally slippery
chauffeurs has been found to accomp-
lish marvels in miles of recorded but
untravelled distance. Other tricks of
the taxi-trade are to be searched out
for the victims of their remarkable
revolutions, if nine tenths of the popu
lations can have their will upon this
unpopular system of rapid transit.