expedient than express service via the steam roads.

The larger number of trains being operated by the traction lines renders quicker transportation during business hours possible, and the fact that they enter in the very hearts of the cities and towns they serve, gives opportunity to greatly facilitate delivery.

Generally speaking, the traction systems operate their own express service. In cities where the volume of business warrants it, they have a collection and delivery wagon service, after the manner of the old line express companies operating over the steam roads. The express feature of the traction business has of late assumed such importance in the eyes of the old line beneficiaries that it is said the latter are diligently devising plans to control the traction, as well as the steam road, express business.

express business over the Toledo, Cleveland and Detroit traction groups. Should this plan work out, it may result in an enforced division of the business among the old line companies according to their geographical positions. The Northern group of traction lines just. mentioned could very easily be absorbed by the Gould system in connection with the Wabash Railroad, just as the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Adams might force a desired alliance with the groups of traction lines farther south. And thus the utility of the modern traction systems may be impaired before the public is prepared to meet the issue.

It is distinctly evident, in the operations of such syndicates as the WeidnerElkins and the Schoepf-McGowan, who control the trunk and tributary lines. from Eastern Ohio to Western Indi

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ana-about 1600 miles of track; Everett-Moore, and the Wolf Mandelbaum syndicates, who have 1500 miles of track in Toledo, Cleveland and Detroit territory, besides 300 miles tributary to Chicago; the McKinley syndicate with 500 miles piercing the best territory from St. Louis to Chicago; and the John I. Beggs syndicated, with 200 miles of important track tributary to Milwaukee, that the steam railroad magnates operating in the same territory have come to regard the ambitious traction lines as real competitors. was quite a different matter as long as the traction lines carried a few local passengers and an occasional parcel-that sort of railroading had no terrors for the trustees of the big steam railroad combinations; but now that the once despised traction lines are carrying the mails at less than railroad trust extor

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sounded a genuine note of danger. But that is not all, nor is it the worst. The traction lines are actually giving so much better freight service, so much more economical delivery, that their equipment is not great enough to take care of the freight offered them at rates higher than the steam roads charge. Moreover, dining cars are becoming common on the through traction lines, while sleeping cars, as yet only in the experimental stage, are a further feature planned by traction managers to render their service actual and capable-if not superior in some respects-as competitors of the steam roads.

The benefits that have accrued to urban populations, in the matter of increased property values as a direct result of traction service, has built up a strong rural sentiment favoring these lines. For a time this sentiment was mani

offered several opportunities of reaching the city market on time, as compared to single trains only each morning over steam roads. Then, the cost of the traction service was lower, and the item of drayage was eliminated, the traction cars generally reaching the market places.

Presently the country merchant, and village merchants as well, came to understand that by using the traction as a freight carrier they could make gains in time of shipping merchandise ordered from city jobbers and manufacturers. They discovered also that there was likelihood of getting shipments on time. when made via traction lines. For instance, a country merchant telephoning an important order to a city wholesaler, by stipulating that the shipment must be placed aboard a car leaving the city at a near hour thereafter, could reasonably approximate the time he would that same day be in possession of the goods. As against this service, the country buyer would know from experience, that if he ordered shipment by a steam road the goods would not be loaded into the freight car until late in the day, and the local freight train would not leave the city sooner than the morning of the next day and that it might be expected to reach this particular country merchant's station on schedule, or five or maybe ten hours late, as the exigencies of the day's business on that division rendered necessary. For, of course, it is well known that local freight trains have no rights that anything else on wheels, save the hand-car, is bound to respect.

Thus the freight and express business of the electric lines grew alongside of their steam road competitors. The passenger business of the traction lines was important from the outset, therefore does not show growth in recent years as compared to other sources of revenue. Since the States of Indiana and Ohio have fixed the maximum rate for passenger travel at two cents per mile there is

not so much difference in the cost of passage over traction as compared to steam roads as formerly. In some localities the fares are equal, in others nearly so, the shade of difference being in favor of the traction. The fact that the traction lines offer a multiple of opportunities to travel as compared with the steam roads, gains much business for the former at even rates.

In the matter of long distances, say in Ohio and Indiana, where the steam roads charge two cents per mile flat, the passenger may cover the distance by a parallel traction for one and one-fourth cents per mile. But, in the matter of long distances, the steam roads make so much better time that they hold the business largely, even at the higher rate. But there is a class of passenger business from one city to another, say one hundred miles apart, that the traction systems have taken strong hold of. Το illustrate: say that five persons, going in a party from a starting point to a destination seventy miles away, desired to take advantage of the lowest available rate, one of the party might buy a threehundred-and-fifty mile book over the traction line for $5.00, taking his four companions as his guests. By this plan the one-way fare is reduced to one and three-sevenths cents per mile. A rate of one and one-fourth cents per mile may be had by paying $12.50 for a onethousand-mile book. This mileage carries baggage stubs just as steam road mileage does.

One of the gravest troubles experienced by traction companies endeavoring to enter cities, has been to secure rights of way, street franchises and station grounds. Generally speaking, these companies have been generously treated in the country, farmers either donating or selling at low figures necessary rights of way. County authorities also have been generous with slices of broad country highways, but it has been the experi-ence of traction companies that as soon