To Be Fined for Riding

1916

New York, Sept. 23. — Traction lines of New York upon which a strike has been in progress since September 6, were officially placed upon the "unfair" list today by the conference of the labor leaders which yesterday called for a suspension of work by approximating 600,000 workers to aid the striking car men. Arrangements have been made to picket the subway, elevated and surface lines, it was announced, for the purpose of "discovering the patrons."

Penalties for riding upon these lines will be imposed on members of unions by their respective organizations, it was stated by Ernest Bohm, secretary of the Central Federated Union.

Strike Still Threatening

1916

New York, Sept. 21. — The threatened strike in sympathy with the striking street car employes will be called tomorrow it was announced late today by Ernest Bohm, Secretary of the Central Federated Union. Bohm made the announcement after a conference between labor leaders and a citizens committee which both he and Mayor Mitchell declared had failed in its efforts to avert the strike.

According to announcement late tonight by union officials, the threatened general strike order will include cooks and kitchen help, waiters and bell boys. Virtually every large hotel and restaurant in New York, it was said, would be affected.

Labor leaders were given formal warnings by Mayor Mitchel tonight that he would employ the "full civil and military powers" conferred upon him by law to prevent disorders if the threatened general strike of trades unionists is called tomorrow to aid the street car employes who quit their places September 6.

Painful Results of Stoutness

1901

A stout man lifted himself into a Heights car the other morning and took the only vacant seat. Pretty soon a lady came aboard, and the stout man quickly arose to tender her his place. As he reached a standing position the car suddenly started, and he sat down with a sound like a broken slat. Blushing deeply, he once more struggled to his feet and was about to step out into the aisle when the motorman saw a wagon on the track and fiercely applied the brakes. The car stopped so suddenly that the stout man doubled over on a thin young man in the front seat and almost cracked his slender neck. The young man pushed the dents out of his derby hat and muttered some remarks that were not complimentary to fat people in general.

Then the fat man braced himself for the third time, and the lady sympathetically remarked, "Please don't trouble yourself." But the fat man's spirit was up. He crowded out into the aisle and filled it so full that the lady could not get by him; then, with a polite wave of his hand, he indicated the seat and backed out of the way.

"Thank you!" said the lady very sweetly. "But I get off at the next stop."

Then the fat man went out and filled up the back platform. — Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Courtesy to Women

1920

We used to forgive the vaudevillians who coined patter about the gentlemen who occupy the trolley seats while less aggressive female passengers cling to the straps, says the Boston Post. That was because the same vaudevillians also cracked those ancient Brooklyn slanders, which caused us to think that both were part and parcel of the "original" production.

It is getting past that point now. Boston is suffering from the same capitulation to selfishness, to smugness and to irreverence. A woman, in a recent letter to the Post, complaining of the jams in tunnel and subway stations, touched a matter that concerns not only politics and economics, but sociology. For the bitterest lines in her letter are those describing an attempt to force an entrance into an "L" train during the rush hour. "I made three attempts," she writes, "and was hurled back by a mob of males (you couldn't call them men), and finally the fourth train I got in, and was almost crushed doing so."

This indicates that, for what reason philosophers will, we have got farther away than is good for us from the simple, honest acceptance of courtesy and comity.

Listen, World! — "Chivalry and Equality"

1922

By Elsie Robinson

And right now we're going to talk about this business of taking off hats in elevators or giving up seats to ladies on the street cars. It is generally conceded that such acts indicate a chivalrous attitude toward the ladies and the Advocates of Chivalry bitterly deplore the hatted head and the seated seat. My opinion is that the Advocates of Chivalry had better take a cold shower and snap out of it.

I too believe in chivalrous attitudes and marks of honor. But the highest mark of honor, to my mind, which a man can give a woman is to treat her as an equal. None of this pedestal stuff. I would feel much more honored if a tired man would ask me to help him carry his bundles than if he should take off his hat in the elevator in which we are rising. There's infinitely more freedom, dignity and true comradeship for me in sharing 50-50 with a man on amusement expenses than in all the knightly jousts that ever kicked up the dust in honor of some fair lady's glove. I would much rather stand while a busy man tells me of his work though he does it with a cigar in his mouth and his coat off than have him honor me by giving me his chair while he inwardly curses at the interruption.

And why, in the name of common sense and fairness, should the average man give his seat to a woman in the street car — provided she be neither old nor infirm? Does a man not grow tired as well as a woman? He does. Doesn't he have back aches and headaches and heartaches and fallen arches just as frequently? He does. Can't the average Young Person to whom he is supposed to give that seat out dance him and outrun him? She can. Can't the average Dowager out eat him and out-window shop him? She can. Then that's that.

What I want are the tokens of Equality. I don't give two hoots for the politeness that's handed out to me because I'm a Woman. But beautiful to me as a sunrise and as full of golden promises are the indifferences and rudenesses which I encounter as a FELLOW WORKER.

Courtesy All Too Scarce

Ohio, 1914

Cleveland Man Set Fine Example of the Duty of a Gentleman to the Fair Sex

The youthful Walter Raleigh spreading his velvet cloak on muddy walk for his queen to pass, is a pleasant historical picture. But the heart of a courteous gentleman may beat under the blouse of a workingman as well as under the cloak of a courtier.

Last November the city of Cleveland was cut off from the outer world by the worst storm of wind and sleet and snow in its history. Traction lines and railways were tied up for several days. Four days after the storm, a woman reached Cleveland to visit her sister. She knew that the cars were not yet running on the line she wished to take, and so she took a car on another line that would take her to the city limits, where she hoped to connect with a car that would take her where she wanted to go.

Forty minutes later she stepped from the car at the edge of the city. Between her and the curbstone a wide stream of water six or eight inches deep was running. As she looked helplessly about, a workingman whose hair was touched with gray left a group on the sidewalk, waded out to her and said: "Madam, you don't know me, and I don't know you, but if you'll let me, I'll be glad to help you to the sidewalk." She thanked him, and he took her suitcase to the curb, splashed back, and taking her up in his arms, waded with her to the walk. There he put her down dry-shod, carried her suitcase into a near-by store, and told her he would tell her when her car came; for he was also waiting for it.

Two hours later he waded with the suit case to the long-delayed car, returned, and splashed once more through the stream of melting snow as he carried her to the step. Then he said "I hope you'll be all right," and took a place at the opposite end of the car. — Youth's Companion.


Daily Thought

As the flowers carry dewdrops trembling on the edge of the petals, and ready to fall at the first waft of wind or brush of wing of bird, so the heart should carry its beaded words of thanksgiving, and at the first breath of heavenly favor let down the shower perfumed with the heart's gratitude. — Beecher.

The Trolley Wagon

1898

A New Thing Which Makes Fifteen Miles an Hour

The very latest vehicle to transport people around is called the trolley wagon. This interesting contrivance is really a happy medium between the trolley car and the ordinary vehicle. We have had auto-cars and motor-cars, but the trolley wagon is neither. It is an invention all by itself, and its source of power is the one thing that enables the trolley car to call it a first cousin.

The motor of the wagon is connected to the rear wheel by suitable gearing. It is about 15-horsepower. It is a powerful affair, for its two rear wheels are eight feet in diameter. The two front wheels are four feet in diameter. The frame supporting the motor is suspended from the wagon frame.

The width of the wheels is considerable, and as the front wheels are much nearer together than the rear wheels the wagon acts to quite a degree as a road roller. One of the advantages of the trolley wagon is that the worst road in the country has no terrors for it. The width of its wheels and the way they are adjusted make it possible for it to even ride over plowed ground in safety, and without that disagreeable jar that a rough road generally causes.

The trolley itself is adapted to run either on two or three wires. Everyone who has seen a trolley car must have noticed the little wheel that runs along on the wire. This is called the locking wheel, and its movement, which has heretofore been on a vertical plane, is arranged in this instance to operate on a horizontal plane, thus changing complication to simplicity and reducing the cost and weight of the wheel.

The inventor of the vehicle believes there are wonderful prospects in store for it. He sees no reason why it may not be utilized in many sections of the country, particularly where street cars do not run, and the building of a street car line would involve tremendous expense. He thinks the trolley wires could be erected, and then all that is needful will have been accomplished, as the trolley wagon can run over any kind of a road.

The wagon referred to has made a speed on a road of not over good construction of 15 miles an hour without great jar or accident. The invention certainly possesses the merit of being unique, and in attracting no little interest among those who are interested in the future of the trolley. — Philadelphia Press.

Woman Tickled, Then Flogs Innocent Man

New York, July 1914

Man Smiles When Feather of One Woman Brushes Another

The feather projecting from a woman's hat brushed across the neck of Mrs. Alice Tamraz, of 224 Somerville place, Yonkers, as she stood waiting for a street car in Getty square, Yonkers yesterday, and she wheeled around to see who had tickled her.

Peter Doyle of 42 Orchard street standing nearby, thrust one hand into his pocket, stroked his chin with the other and smiled. Mrs. Tamraz was sure the hand Doyle held in his pocket concealed a tickler, and that he was laughing at her discomfort.

So she raised her umbrella and flogged him until such a crowd surged around that Policeman Ryan had difficulty elbowing his way through and rescuing Doyle. The two made counter charges of assault against each other and went around to the station house.

There Doyle persuaded Mrs. Tamraz that a passing woman's feather tickled her neck, and that he had nothing to do with it. — New York Tribune.

Crowded Mass Transit Train — The Fat Man and The Spinster

1905

ON STRANGER'S LAP SPINSTER RODE IN CROWDED ELEVATED TRAIN

Situation Enjoyed by the Other Passengers, but Decidedly Distasteful to the Principals — Fat Man Finally Succumbs to Fate

The elevated train was chock full when the very stout man got on at Thirty-third street. There wasn't room between platform and platform for a famine victim; but the stout man, like all stout men, didn't see how he could make any difference. He stepped upon the platform buoyantly, mashing a messenger boy flat against the door and spreading a lemon-faced little spinster all over the window like jam or butter.

At Twenty-eighth street half a dozen people got out. Instantly there was a rush for seats and standing room left inside the car. But alas! when a fat man gets wedged in a doorway, who else can penetrate it? Again, like all fat men, the fat man was lucky, and, strange as it may appear, he managed to get one of the seats recently vacated.

When he had sat down the little spinster gathered herself together and found a foothold in front of him, and the others, with some new passengers just taken on, crowded in after her and packed themselves like sardines. They were squeezed so tight that the spinster reached for a strap to keep from being pushed over on the fat man's head and shoulders. But just as she made a grasp somebody else caught the only remaining strap. The bell rang sharply and the train started with a jerk. The little spinster lost her breath and balance, toppled for a moment on her toes and then sank struggling down upon the fat man's lap.

The fat man gasped and the spinster gave an awful cry of consternation and reached for the floor. But there was no floor! Every inch of space was covered by the feet of the determined passengers. The moment she sat down they had spread out over her space. Then she blushed. Some people looked her way and laughed, but nobody moved. She couldn't wedge her knees down from the altitude they had assumed at the first lurch.

She continued to struggle and strain to reach a strap, while the fat man sat helpless with that energetic mite of femininity going through the jiu jitsu exercises on his knees. At the next station more people got on and the fight of the lone spinster became more difficult and desperate.

Flesh and blood, even 300 pounds strong, could stand it no longer. Like a mountain rising and casting off the small cities on its surface, the ponderous one rose and pushed the sardine-like passengers out of his magic circle. The spinster slid off his knee like a drop of water off a duck.

"Madam," said the fat man, lifting his hat gravely, "will you do me the honor to take my seat?"

"Well, it's about time!" snapped the ruffled little spinster ungratefully. — New York Press.

A Lady's Long Trance: A Spasm, A Comatose State

1878

A Lady's Long Trance

The Des Moines (Iowa) Register of a recent issue, says: Yesterday evening there stopped at the Given House Mr. and Mrs. Shadle, of Guthrie county, accompanied by some attendants. They are escorting to Mount Pleasant Mrs. Shadle, who has been in an almost continual trance ever since last June.

Some time last March, without any premonitory symptoms, the lady became insane, wild at first, and finally violent. She was visiting a sister near her own residence. Soon after her arrival there she began to talk strangely, and a few days later was raving with insanity, and at times very violent. On the 12th of June Mrs. Shadle had a spasm, from which she passed off into a comatose state, which continued without intermission until October 1, when she awakened and conversed, although incoherently. The next day she again fell asleep and has not since been awake.

She is fed by forcing her mouth open and placing the food inside. Her respiration is regular, but a little more frequent than that of most people of her age, which is twenty-nine. She has one child, a boy of four years. The first evidence of wakefulness she has exhibited since the 2nd of October was the day before yesterday, when she was carried from her home to a vehicle to be transferred to the cars. The little boy climbed into the wagon and placing his arms about his mother's neck, kissed her. Tears immediately rolled from the closed eyes, but they remained closed, and there was no other sign of waking. She is to be taken to the asylum for the insane at Fort Madison.


Ingenious Pickpockets

Lucy H. Hooper says that the Parisian pickpocket has invented a special mode of theft. The thief enters the omnibus, chooses his seat beside some well-dressed and apparently affluent person, and remains motionless and apparently absorbed in his reflections. But between his finger and thumb he holds a very small grain of shot attached to a black silk thread of extreme fineness and strength. When his next neighbor opens his or her pocket-book to pay the fare, the thief adroitly throws his grain of shot into the pocket-book, retailing the end of the silk thread in his hand. The pocket-book is closed and replaced in the owner's pocket, grain of shot and all. The thief profits by some extraordinary jolt of the vehicle to fall against his neighbor, and in that moment he draws in the silk thread and gains possession of his prize.

What A Mistake — She Had the Wrong Pocket

1903

Awful Mistake of the Pretty Girl In the Automobile Coat

A pretty girl wearing an automobile coat that reached to her heels, stepped aboard an Indiana avenue electric car at Thirty-first street the other day and took the only remaining seat, which was next to a man bundled in a great ulster. The atmosphere in the car was rather frigid, and the young woman felt about for her coat pockets, and finally shoved her hands deep down into the folds of the garment.

An instant later she felt a large gloved hand steal inside the pocket. It closed upon her own hand and gently pressed it. The pretty girl was enraged and turned upon the man at her side. The car was crowded with passengers and she did not wish to create a scene. She bit her lip, straightened up and looked directly ahead. Again the hand closed gently upon her own. She gave her arm a quick jerk and withdrew her hand from the pocket. The man, not the least abashed, also withdrew his hand.

Her fingers soon began tingling with cold and she slipped her hand into the pocket again. While she sat shivering she again felt a large gloved hand steal into the pocket. For a moment she sat quietly, and then the hand once more pressed her own. She would endure such a flirtation no longer. She thrust her hand deeper into the pocket and faced the man.

"Take your hand out of my pocket, sir," she said, in a fierce voice.

"Pardon me, miss," said the man, "but will you be so kind as to take your hand out of my pocket?

The young woman looked surprised, and with a jerk withdrew her hand. When she saw she had confused the folds of the two coats she blushed, signaled the conductor to stop the car, and fled toward the door. When the car stopped she stepped to the street, without, even turning to give the man an apologetic glance. — Chicago Inter-Ocean.