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RECENT REPORT of United States Consul Hamon, Hull, England, on the subject of municipal street railway service in that city, is fraught with lessons of great practical importance.

The City of Hull, says Consul Hamon, began the municipalization of its transit system at an unusually favorable time. The charters of the old companies were about to expire, so there were few rights and privileges to be acquired. The total outlay of money for this purpose was about $170,000. At the same date the city was entering upon an extended system of street improvements. The streets were to be repaved and widened, and new avenues cut through the old part. It was thus possible to lay new tracks at the same time that new pavements were put down.

A statement of the street-car system would not be complete without a description of these city pavements. They are of the most enduring character, and afford a foundation for the rails unequaled by anything of the kind that I know of in the United States. First a layer of chalk is put down, ten inches thick. Over this is placed an 8-inch layer of broken stone and cement, in which the ties for the stringers are laid; and on this layer of cement are superimposed the blocks of wood or stone which form the pavement. The rails are of the center-groove girder pattern, weighing 96 pounds to the yard. This forms a track which for solidity and evenness cannot be surpassed. Hull has now a little over 12 miles of such double track, and this number is being constantly added to.

One of the chief peculiarities of the Hull tram system is the double-decked car. Recent statistics show that of the 6,660 electric cars in use in the United Kingdom, 90 per cent are double-deckers, and only 10 per cent single-deckers. In this way the seating capacity of the cars is more than doubled, the upper deck

accommodating more passengers than the lower deck. The Hull cars are of two different dimensions, the smaller seating 22 passengers below and 35 on top. This, of course, compels a heavier style of car and longer platforms, both at the front and rear, so as to prevent congestion in loading and unloading. These cars cost here about $3,000 each, without the cover over the roof, which is now being added to most of them.

It is often asked why the doubledecker has never been adopted in the United States. Two or three reasons

have been given for this neglect. One is the supposed confusion and delay caused on the platforms by passengers boarding or alighting from the car, part of whom enter or emerge from the interior and part from the upper deck. No such confusion, congestion, or delay is noticeable on the cars in Hull, even during the most busy hours of the day.

The second objection to the doubledecker is that it is not adapted to the extremes of climate in the United States. In the heat of summer, it is argued, the passengers would be exposed to the burning rays of the sun; in the winter, to the cold blasts; and at all seasons, to storms. This objection is apparently more tenable than the one based on alleged delay in loading and unloading. But it has been

overcome by the roofing-in of the upper deck with combined glass and wood covers. These protect the passengers from the weather as effectually as the inside. passengers are protected. The roofs are of different styles and arrangements. They all have a fixed wooden framework, but in one pattern the side windows can be raised or lowered separately, while in the other pattern all the windows on both sides of the upper deck are raised and lowered together by a winch. The roof in both styles coils up like a rollertop desk, either in sections or all together. In one style of these the deck extends completely over both platforms; but in the kind used in Hull, it is only

DOUBLE-DECKED TROLLEY CAR, WITH UPPER DECK
ROOFED IN.

a little longer than the body of the car. This inclosing of the upper deck would appear to overcome the climatic objection to this kind of car.

A third objection to the double-decker is the added weight and difficulty of handling them. How decisive this objection would be on roads in cities where there are heavy grades, I do not know; but on level grades, no difficulty is experienced. The cars are stopped and started as quickly and easily as the singledecker cars; and there are more slippery tracks to contend with in this country than in the United States, the fogs and rains causing wet and muddy rails much more frequently. The weight of these double-decked cars, with every seat occupied above and below, cannot be much more than the weight of the crowded single-deck cars. run on nearly every American street railway during the busy

hours of the day. So this third objection to the double-decker vanishes.

One of the chief merits of the doubledecker car is that it offers a smoking compartment for men with every car. Very few women climb the stairs, although they are easy of ascent and descent; and accidents from falling are so rare as to make them a negligible quantity. The "deck" is especially popular with men, who can smoke as they will even if women are present, the free circulation of air removing all offensive odors. Another merit of the doubledecker is its uses as an observation car, the pleasure of riding so far above the street with an extended outlook being great.

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Next to the style of cars, the chief distinguishing feature of the Hull tramway system, is the cheapness of the fares. These are I penny (2 cents) on all lines and for all distances. The financial results of this low-fare system are equally interesting. During the last twelve months reported on, there were 10 miles of double track, or 20 miles of single track, in operation. The gross income was about $445.000; the cost of operation was about $233.000; this left a gross profit of $212,000, and, deducting interest on the investment and the sinking sum, left a net profit of $122,000, or an average of over $12,000 a mile of double track, which went into the City Treasury. The wages paid look low to an AmeriMotormen receive from $6.75 to $8.50 a week, and conductors from $5.00 to $6.50 a week. But it must be remembered that house rents and some kinds of provisions are lower in England than in most American cities. This difference might make it necessary to add $2.00 a week to the wages of Hull motormen and conductors when comparing them with the wages of the same class of American workingmen. But, as the total wages paid on the whole system was a little less than the net profits, after deducting interest and sinking fund, it is evident that wages could be doubled and still a small profit be shown. All the employees are of an excellent class, fully equal in intelligence and efficiency to those employed on any street-car line. A day's work consists of ten hours, the cars being

run from 5 A. M. to 11:30 P. M. The speed varies in different parts of the city, the maximum being 12 miles an hour. The overhead trolley is used.

These are the results of the municipalization of city transit in Hull. They give American cities a striking proof of the mistake they have made in surrendering

their streets to private companies that operate the lines for their private benefit, and often to the detriment of the public. If the advocates of the municipalization of street-car lines in the United States wish a good object-lesson on their side of the question, they cannot do better than to study the Hull tramway system.

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Locomotives

THE NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD is now having built thirty electric locomotives which are expected Electric to haul trains of cars at a speed of 75 miles an hour. These locomotives will be capable of developing 2,800 horse-power. The present steam locomotives which haul the Empire State Express have a horse-power of 1,500 when running at 60 miles an hour. The weight of one of these electric locomotives is 85 tons; and the length, 37 feet. The diameter of the driving wheels is 44 inches; and of the pony truck wheels, 36 inches. The New York Central has made the first step among the railroads towards the replacing of steam locomotives with electric.

HAS THE REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT of interurban trolley lines detracted from Trolley or added to the business versus Steam of railroads? Instead of Lines looking on these electric lines as competitors, big railway systems are now beginning to regard them as "feeders" to the main lines. Statistics show that in short hauls the electric lines detract considerably from railway passenger traffic in localities where there is much competition, but it is believed that in long hauls they have added greatly to the business of the railroads by creating a desire for traveling, and by making the main lines easily accessible from points whence they derived little patronage before the advent of the interurban trolley lines.

In 1895-the year when the independent railway systems of cities began to expand into "interurban" lines, connecting towns and cities over wide stretches of country-the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern road carried 104,426 west

bound and 98,588 east-bound passengers between Cleveland and Oberlin, Ohio, a distance of 34 miles. In 1896 the network of trolley lines about Cleveland was practically completed. By 1902 the trolley lines had made such inroads upon the business of the railway lines that the latter carried a total of only 91,761 passengers between Cleveland and Oberlin, against a total of 203,014 seven years before.

On the 29 miles of track between Cleveland and Painesville and intermediate points, the Lake Shore carried a total of 199,292 passengers, or an average of 16,608 a month, in 1895; and 28,708, or an average of 2,302 a month, in 1902.

Prior to the building of the electric road from Detroit to Ann Arbor, Michigan, a distance of 40 miles, the purely local business of the Michigan Central road between those points was about 200 passengers a day. During the first summer that it was in operation, the electric road averaged 4,000 passengers a day between those points.

Undoubtedly a great amount of entirely new traffic has been created by the electric lines. The steam roads, it is believed, have derived great advantages from this new business, as statistics show a great increase in long-haul traffic from all districts where the interurban trolley has reached a high stage of development.

experiment with that crop. The alfalfa earth is impregnated with a kind of parasite which lives on this plant; and this is a very good thing for the alfalfa, because the plant flourishes on dead parasites. The transported soil will be scattered over the field in which the seed is planted. The experiment will be watched with interest.

PROBABLY as simple and clear an explanation of the manner in which gold How coin circulates through the commercial world, was given by one of our weeklies in the following editorial:

Gold Travels

Some coined gold recently made an interesting journey from Tokio to Paris, by way of the United States, and is now on its way toward St. Petersburg.

Japan has been buying supplies heavily from the United States. Such transactions can ordinarily be settled through bills of exchange, by which purchases

and sales on one side of the water are swapped off against purchases and sales on the other. But, because of war needs, Japan bought much more than usual in this country. The "balance of trade" between the two countries turned strongly in our favor, and Japan had to send gold across the Pacific to square the ac

count.

Meanwhile the Government of the United States has bought for forty million dollars the property of the Panama Canal Company, which was owned chiefly in France. It may be that some of the identical gold that came from Japan was used in the payment for the canal. It would have reached Paris just when the French were taking a great Russian war loan.

So, unless Russia uses the proceeds of its French loan to buy supplies in Paris, or to pay for them from that city, this gold, continuing its journey, may go to St. Petersburg, and come into the possession of the country with which Japan is at war. On the other hand, there may be a return movement to Japan of the gold realized by the Japanese loan, which was mostly taken up in England and the United States.

Gold, instead of other metals or of

paper money, performs these journeys, because it is the article in which international balances are settled. It serves this purpose because its value as coin and its face value are everywhere identical. The coin of one country can be melted into that of another without loss.

Hence gold moves about the world regardless of the symbols which individual nations may stamp on its face.

ACCORDING TO OUR CONSULAR REPORTS, there has been only 5 per cent inOur Small crease in our trade with South American the South American states

Trade during the last thirty years. To the forty million people in South America, our yearly sales amount to less than $1.00 per capita. This is a most inadequate and unsatisfactory state. of affairs. We sold to the Canadians last year a little less than $24 per capita; and to the Cubans, without any reciprocity, about $15 per capita. Of the total imports into South American countries, our share is only a fraction more than 10 per cent of their trade; and, while we boast of our American shrewdness and superior methods of business, the unsatisfactory condition of our trade in South America is due mainly to a lack of intelligent and well-directed trade energy. We buy from them three times as much as we sell them. We pay them $120,000,000 for their products, and they use the difference between that and $40,000,000 to purchase from our foreign competitors the goods which we might and ought to sell them. In other words, we supply them with funds which enable them to buy from other people things that we grow and manufacture. In the last thirty years, we have purchased from South America $1.700,000,000 more than we have sold it by direct transportation.