large portion of the hackmen and teamsters have to go; and where there is generally a great crowd. And this is a fact, Mr. Chairman,—I think, without dispute, there is no city in Europe, or the United States, where what you may call the shopping streets, the fashionable streets, what corresponds to our Washington and Tremont Streets, are so crowded as they are in the city of Boston; and I shall show you in my closing, or at some other time, where I think the fault is, and what has got to be done. The city of Boston has got to take hold of this matter and provide means for this travel, by making its streets wide enough. No matter what it costs, it must be done now. I say it without fear of contradiction, that there is not another city in Europe or America, where the fashionable shopping streets are as crowded as Washington and Tremont Streets are in Boston. On pleasant days you can hardly get through Washington Street on the sidewalks, and there is always a crowd at the corner of Winter and Washington Streets. You go into Tremont Street, and you experience the same difficulty in getting from the Revere House down to the Tremont House. I was at the Revere House the other day, and, being in a hurry to take a train, I asked a hackman how long it would take to reach the Boston, Hartford and Erie depot. He said he should not dare say he could go there in less than half an hour. I said to him," Why I can walk there in ten minutes." He said, "I may get there in five, but the chances are I shall be much longer;" and he was really twenty-two minutes. He drove from the Revere House up by the State House, down Park Street, and then worked his way through Winter Street, across Washington and down Summer Street. It was a very zigzag course, and we were obliged to stop constantly.

As I said, Mr. Chairman, all want to go through this crowded portion of the streets, and will not be content unless they can be carried to that point. But we could not carry them all, so we have stopped four or five lines at the Tremont House, instead of carrying them around the circuit

of this square. But there is not a day passes but some conductor is scolded at because he will not go farther. They do not see why they should not go round as well as everybody else. Complaint is constantly made by those who have not looked into the matter of travel, because the cars stop at the Tremont House. Now, when the Metropolitan Railroad began, in 1856, they carried the first year about four million passengers, and this last year they have carried about sixteen and a half millions, in round numbers. The Broadway Railroad carried the last year, I think, something like five millions; so that the whole number of passengers that were carried around through there amounted to about twenty-one millions. That is the increase in passengers,—from four millions to about twenty-one millions. Now, what increase has been made in the width of the streets? Tremont Street has been widened, but not nearly as much as it ought to have been, and Washington Street has been widened a little at some points; that is about all. There is hardly any additional width of street through which to carry the largelyincreased number of passengers. And bear in mind that the other travel in the city of Boston has increased very largely at the same time; so that the streets have been blocked a great deal more than formerly on that account.

The returns have not come in this year; so I do not know exatly the number of passengers that came in over the steam railroads last year; but, looking at the returns of the year before, I find that the number of passengers carried by the steam railroads in Massachusetts-miles and miles in length, bear in mind-was twenty-four millions, in round numbers. Mr. MERRILL. That is only for ten months.

Mr. BATES.-Call it thirty millions then; it was not more than thirty millions last year. While the Metropolitan and South Boston Railroads alone, carried twenty-one million passengers, in round numbers, last year, all the steam railroads over the State put together did not carry over thirty millions; and the former were carried in this little bit of space. I do not know the whole number carried by all the horse rail

roads in the State last year; but I have no doubt, when the returns come in, we shall find that it will be thirty millions. The horse railroads that come into Boston probably carry as many passengers as all the steam railroads in Massachusetts. Now, it seems to me that it must take some brains to carry those people in any way through this narrow, crowded space, and there must be a great deal of good-nature, if not goodwill, on the part of those who do carry them, with the generally admitted fact that all mankind, from the beginning of the world down to to-day, have been finding fault with their methods of travel, and always calling for and demanding better accommodations and comparing their accommodations with the accommodations of other people. We all know how natural that is. I remember when I resided in South Boston it seemed to me that I never saw a South Boston car ; they were all Metropolitan cars; and when I lived at the South End, it seemed to me I never found a Metropolitan car; they were all South Boston. If I waited a minute, it seemed as if I waited five; and if I waited five, it seemed as if it was twenty. That is nature; it is the way with all of us; it is the Yankee blood; we cannot do otherwise; and, as I say, we have to meet the complaints of all classes of people included in these twenty-one million passengers.

The Metropolitan road alone, carries something like fortyfive thousand passengers a day, all through this narrow space, and the South Boston road carries about one-third as many; so that in round numbers we will call it fifteen thousand, making sixty thousand passengers a day carried by these roads through this crowded portion of Tremont and Washington Streets. It is perfectly easy to say sixty thousand, almost as easy as to say six; but when you come to think how many people that is, and try to realize it, you will see that it is a great many. Supposing you carried them altogether in cars, with each one having twenty seated in it. Each car and the horses attached to it would take about twenty feet; so that in reality you would have a line of cars sixty thousand feet long, which is pretty nearly twelve miles.

Now, it certainly seems to me that it requires some skill to manage that every day, and it is a pretty hard thing to do. If anybody on earth, even my friend Mr. Swift, can manage it so that there shall not be any complaint, he will do better than any other man in the world can do.

I will speak of another difficulty,—which I mean to have explained by our witnesses soon,-in reference to this doubling up of cars. This is one of the sorest evils we have to deal with, and always happens to come when our cases are going on in the legislature, so that everybody naturally feels more inclined to be bitter against us. God sends the snow, and those of us who have to walk in it are sure to get wet feet, unless we have pretty good shoemakers. The snow comes, and we must provide for it, and all must suffer more or less inconvenience from it. Those who walk are in danger of slipping, getting their feet wet, and getting cold; and some of those who have private vehicles will not take them out on account of the inconvenience; and on such occasions, and such occasions only, they ride in the horse cars. Now we try, we think, to do what we can. Some winters we get along with little snow, and everything goes off smoothly; but some winters we have a great deal of snow, and then it is almost impossible to get along. As a rule, snow-storms cost us all the way from five to fifty thousand dollars. We lose money, something like a thousand dollars a day, when we have to run after one of these heavy snow-storms. And talk as you please about not wanting dividends, it is not in human nature for business men to run horse railroads or steam railroads from pure, disinterested benevolence; and I do not believe my friends from the Highlands are going to do it. We have to look after the stockholders to a certain extent, or we soon shall not have any to look after, and the road will have to be given up; then gentlemen who want to ride may get along the best way they can, without any roads. If you run a railroad so that nothing can be made on it, then we all understand that it will not be a great while before the people will have to get along some other way; therefore the

managers of a road have to look somewhat after the interests of the stockholders. Many years we have to suffer from the disadvantages growing out of the snow, and sometimes we lose the profits that we have made during the whole year.

Take us as we stand to-day, about nine hundred horses will do our work in the summer. Now we have got twelve hundred horses, that is one-third more, and we have got them for this very purpose, for the extra occasions when the snow comes, when there is a holiday or any great celebration, and it is necessary for us to put on more cars. We do not use them in ordinary times, because it is not necessary. Supposing we kept these twelve hundred horses the whole year, and the number of cars which they could draw, and the drivers and conductors to go with them; supposing we buy the real estate and stables necessary for keeping all these how can it be done? Would anybody who has common sense, a practical business man, say that the Metropolitan Railroad had brains if they did that? Looking at it from a business point of view, it cannot be done. We think if we get one-third more to supply the contingencies of the winter, we do all that ought to be asked of us; we could not do more and live.

Now, then, Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, supposing this is true, that there is a crying evil, and that it is an evil that can be remedied; that it is an evil that the Metropolitan Railroad have not the ability to remedy, and an evil that they have not the disposition to remedy, then what is the remedy for the people who suffer? Now, in the law of last year,I haven't it here, but gentlemen will remember it, there is a provision that if any railroad does not give reasonable accommodation, they may be complained of by anybody who suffers-any one of these gentlemen out here—and the question shall be tried, and the parties shall be fined from five to twenty dollars. That remedy has never been tried, so far as I know. If it is tried, when the question comes up, it is a question of reasonable accommodations; and when you come to the question of reasonable accommodations, you