LINES OF TRAVEL.
In a city so vast as New York, one of the greatest considerations is to
provide ample means for rapid and sure passage from one part of the
corporate limits to another. Persons who live at the upper end of the
island cannot think of walking to their places of business or labor. To
say nothing of the loss of time they would incur, the fatigue of such a
walk would unfit nine out of ten for the duties of the day. For this
reason all the lines of travel in the City are more or less crowded
every day. The means of transportation now at the command of the people
are the street railways and the omnibusses, or stages; as they are
called.
THE STREET CARS.
The majority of the street railways centre at the Astor House and City
Hall. From these points one can always find a car to almost any place
in the city. The fare is six cents to any part of the City below 62nd
Street, and seven to any point above that and below 130th Street. The
cars are all more or less crowded. With the exception of a few lines,
they are dirty. An insufficient number are provided, and one half of
the passengers are compelled to stand. The conductors and drivers are
often rude and sometimes brutal in their treatment of passengers. One
meets all sorts of people in these cars. The majority of them are rough
and dirty and contact with them keeps a person in constant dread of an
attack of the itch, or some kindred disease. Crowded cars are a great
resort for pickpockets, and many valuable articles and much money are
annually stolen by the light-fingered gentry in these vehicles.
The wages paid to employees by the various companies are not large, and
the drivers and conductors make up the deficiency by appropriating a
part of the fares to their own use. Some are very expert at this, but
many are detected, discharged from the service of the company, and
handed over to the police. The companies exert themselves vigorously to
stop such practices, but thus far they have not been successful. Spies,
or "Spotters," as the road men term them, are kept constantly
travelling over the lines to watch the conductors. These note the
number of passengers transported during the trip, and when the
conductors' reports are handed in at the receiver's office, they
examine them, and point out any inaccuracies in them. They soon become
known to the men. They are cordially hated, and sometimes fare badly at
the hands of parties whose evil doings they have exposed. As all the
money paid for fares is received by the conductor, he alone can
abstract the "plunder." He is compelled to share it with the driver,
however, in order to purchase his silence. In this way, the companies
lose large sums of money annually.
There is either a car or stage route on all the principal streets
running North and South. There are, besides these, several "cross town"
lines, or lines running across the City. East and West, from river to
river. The fare on these is five cents. They cross all the other
railways, and their termini are at certain ferries on the North and
East Rivers.
THE STAGES.
The stages of New York are a feature of the great city which must be
seen to be appreciated. They are fine, handsome coaches, with seats
running lengthways, and capable of seating from twelve to fourteen
persons. They are drawn by two horses, and have all the lightness and
comfort of a fine spring wagon. Their routes begin at the various
ferries on the East river, from which they reach Broadway by the
nearest ways. They pass up Broadway for over a mile, and turn off from
it to other sections of the city at various points between Bleecker and
Twenty-third streets. The fare in these vehicles is ten cents, and is
paid to the driver, who communicates with the passenger by means of a
hole in the upper and front end of the coach. The checkstring passes
from the door through this hole, and is fastened to the driver's foot.
By means of this, a passenger can at any moment stop the stage. In
order that the driver may distinguish between a signal to stop the
coach and one to receive the passenger's fare, a small gong, worked by
means of a spring, is fastened at the side of the hole. By striking
this the passenger at once commands the driver's attention.
The stage drivers are entirely exposed to the weather, and suffer
greatly from the extremes of heat and cold. They can not leave their
seats, and are oftentimes terribly frozen in the winter, before
reaching the ends of their routes. They are constantly on the watch for
passengers, and it is amusing to watch the means to which they resort
to fill their coaches. In the early morning, and towards the close of
the day, they have no need to solicit custom, for then both stages and
cars are crowded to their utmost capacity. During the rest of the day,
however, they exert themselves to fill their coaches. They are called
upon to exercise no little skill in driving. Broadway, and the cross
streets along their routes, are always crowded with vehicles, and it
requires more dexterity than one would at first suppose, to avoid
accidents.
Good drivers are always in demand. Their wages are fair, and they are
allowed the greater part of Saturday, or some other day in the week,
and as the stages do not run on Sunday, they are always sure of two
"off-days" out of the seven. Like the street railway men, they consider
it perfectly legitimate to fill their own pockets at the expense of the
owners of the vehicles. The writer of these pages once had a long
conversation upon this subject with the driver of a stage. Jehu
endeavored to justify the practice of robbing his employers by a number
of very ingenious arguments, and finally closed with the remark:
"Well, you see, Mr. Martin, where the boss is a sensible man, he don't
object to a driver's making a few dollars for himself, for he knows
that a man who can make a plenty of stamps for himself will always make
a plenty for the boss, to keep from being found out; and it is a fact,
sir, that them as makes most for themselves always makes the biggest
returns to the office."
The drivers are frequently in trouble with the police. They have a holy
horror of falling into the hands of these limbs of the law, and this
feeling renders them more careful in their driving, and general conduct
while on duty.
Owing to the high rate of fare demanded by the stages, the rougher and
dirtier portion of the community are seldom met in them. The passengers
are generally of the better class, and one meets with more courtesy and
good breeding here than in the street cars. Ladies, unaccompanied by
gentlemen, prefer the stages to the cars. They are cleaner, and females
are less liable to annoyance.
[Illustration: Scene on Broadway--Dangers of crossing]
Like the cars, however, they are the favorite resorts of pickpockets.
At night they are patronized to such an extent by streetwalkers seeking
custom, that the city press has styled them "perambulating assignation
houses."
THE FERRIES.
Including the Harlem and Staten Island lines, there are twenty-three
lines of ferries plying between New York and the adjacent shores. Of
these, nine are in the North or Hudson river, and fourteen in the East
river. The boats are large side-wheel vessels, capable of carrying both
foot-passengers, horses, and vehicles. Early in the morning they are
crowded with persons and teams coming into the city, and in the
afternoon the travel is equally great away from the city. On some of
the lines the boats ply every five minutes; on others the intervals are
longer. The Harlem and Staten Island boats start hourly--the fare on
these lines is ten cents. On the East river lines it is two cents, on
the North river three cents.
The boats are large and handsome. Nearly all of them are lighted with
gas, and at least a score of them are seen in the stream at the same
moment. At night, with their many colored lights, they give to the
river quite a gala appearance. The travel on them is immense. Over
fifty millions of persons are annually transported by them. Many often
carry from 800 to 1000 passengers at a single trip.
During the summer it is pleasant enough to cross either of the rivers
which encircle the island; but in the winter such travelling is very
dangerous. Storms of snow, fogs, and floating ice interfere greatly
with the running of the boats, and render accidents imminent.
Collisions are frequent during rough or thick weather, and the ice
sometimes carries the boats for miles out of their course. The East
river is always more or less crowded with vessels of all kinds, either
in motion or at anchor, and even in fair weather it is only by the
exercise of the greatest skill on the part of the pilot that collisions
can be avoided. The following incident from one of the city journals
for November 14, 1868, will show how terrible these accidents are:
"Early this morning, when the Brooklyn boats are most crowded, chiefly
with workmen and girls coming to the city just before working hours, a
frightful collision took place as one of the Fulton ferry boats was
entering the New York slip, resulting in the wounding of probably
twenty persons, many of them fatally. At that hour four boats are run
on the Fulton ferry, the Union and Columbia running on a line, as also
the Hamilton and Clinton. The Clinton being slightly detained on the
New York side, the Hamilton, waiting for her, remained longer than
usual at the Brooklyn slip, and received therefore an immense load of
passengers, probably over a thousand. At this time in the morning, it
being flood tide, a strong current sets up the East river from
Governor's Island, which is just now further strengthened by the
freshet on the Hudson. The Hamilton, therefore, after being carried up
on the Brooklyn side, and turning in the centre of the river, steamed
down some distance below the New York slip, as usual, in order not to
be carried beyond by the upward tide. Turning, she then came up to the
slip, where the Union was laying, chained up, at the southern or lower
ferry-way. Close in by the piers an eddy from the main current which
strikes New York about Beekman street, sets strongly down stream. As
the Hamilton came into the slip from below, aiming at the upper ferry-
way, her bow was caught by this eddy and swung around with great force
toward the end of the Union. The Hamilton having a full load and the
Union having just discharged hers, the former was much the lower in the
water. The projecting guard of the Union therefore entered the front
part of the ladies' cabin at about the height of the seats, and also
smashed the rails on the outer deck. This particular part of the boat
was, of course, the most densely crowded, and the consequences of the
shock were frightful. One boy, George Brewer, who was said to have been
outside the chain, was caught by the foot and instantly killed, his
head and a good part of the body being mashed to a jelly. Several had
their feet cut off below the knee, and a dozen others were seriously
injured. The following is the list of those known to be hurt. It is
probable that several cases have not yet been discovered, and one or
two may have fallen overboard and not yet been missed. People looking
anxiously for missing friends, supposed to have been on the fated boat,
have been calling in great numbers during the morning at the ferry-
house and the police station."
Efforts have been made to span the East river with a bridge, for the
purpose of affording sure and safe communication between this city and
Brooklyn, but the plan has always met with the sternest and most
uncompromising hostility from the ferry companies, who wish to retain
their present enormous business.