Each of these requires a paper by itself, but in as concise a way as possible, presenting only the salient reasons and figures, I shall endeavor to embody it in one.

1st. Obtaining of franchise.

I assume the municipal officers and the promoters honest men.

It is the universal settled conviction that a street car propelled with certainty and promptness by mechanical means is infinitely to be preferred to horses. Hence, if this guarantee can be given, there need be no fear from the other side of the house. Years of experience prove that this guarantee can be given.

The mechanical methods are electricity and the cable. To suit local conditions the former has three general applications—overhead, underground, and accumulator systems; while the latter has but one, the underground. Hence, the former, electricity, has three chances to the latter's one to meet the whims, opinions, or decisions of municipal authorities. Other advantages accruing from mechanical methods are cleaner streets, absence of noise, quick time, no blockades, no stables accumulating filth and breeding pestilence, and lastly the great moral sympathetic feeling for man's most faithful and valuable servant, the horse. These all are directly in favor of obtaining the right franchise.

The three general ways of obtaining the same are a definite payment of cash to the authorities, a guarantee of an annual payment of a certain per cent. of the earnings, and lastly a combination of the two. For the city or town the latter way is the safest, and the best, all things considered. As electricity is mechanical, and as it can be shown that it is the cheapest to construct and most economical, and has three chances to operate, it stands by far the most likely to obtain the franchise.

2d. Construction of buildings.

The governing factors under this head are the local land valuation and tax. The system necessitating a spread eagle policy on the land question will cost. What could be a more perfect illustration than the horse railroad system? The motive power of the New York Central Railroad between New York and Albany could be comfortably stowed in the barns of some of the New York City street railways. What a contrast! The real estate, buildings, and fixtures of the Third Ave. line are valued at $1,524,000, and what buildings! Cattle sheds in the metropolis of America. Surely they did not cost a tithe of this great sum. What did? The land, a whole block and more. Henry George advocates might find food for thought here. All this is true of the other lines in every city in the Union. Enormous expenditures for land. A good one half of their capital sunk in purchasing the necessary room. Go where you will, a good fifty per cent. of the capital is used for land for their stables. This obviously does not include equipment.

How is it with mechanical systems? The land is one of the minor considerations, the last thing considered. Let us look at some figures. From careful examination of many engine plants, considering the ratio between a certain number of horses with their necessary adjuncts and a steam plant of numerically equal power, I find it stands as 1 to 30. That is, a steam plant complete of 30 horse power capacity would need only one thirtieth the floor space of thirty horses. With larger powers this ratio is still greater, and from one estimate I found that it stood as 1 to 108, i.e., for horses I should have to have 108 times more floor space than for an equal number of mechanical horse power. It must be remembered also that the mechanical horse power is 50 per cent. greater than the best animal horsepower.

From one maker, taking the engine alone, I found that a rated 100 horse power engine, guaranteed in every particular, would have ample room in the stall for one horse in the average stable. Another instance showed that I could get a steam plant complete, engine, boiler, etc., of 50 horse power, in a space 5 by 6 feet, which is smaller than the average stall. Here is shown the enormous saving in land purchase.

For car room a building several stories high would answer perfectly, since quick-hoisting elevators could be put in and the tracks on each floor have wire connections with the dynamos, so that the cars could be run across the floor to where you please, facilitating storage and dispensing with handling. This would not be possible with the cable.

Comparing electricity and cable on this point, all things favor the former clearly and beyond all question. Furthermore, if locality so favored, the subject of land purchase for electricity could be tabooed entirely, since distance can be so readily overcome. Way out in the suburbs or back in the country by the side of some waterfall, your station might be, while the current is sent to the great city over heavy conductors. Here land rent or tax would be at the minimum. With horses or cable plainly proximity must be had. It is estimated that the land occupied by the Madison Avenue line of New York City is worth the cost of 40 miles of ordinary double track.

3d. Equipment at station and rolling stock.

The rolling stock would be in each case approximately the same. Consisting of cars of equal seating capacity, the difference of cost would be the necessary attachments for the mechanical systems.

• A first class 16 foot horse car costs $1,200;
• A first class 16 foot cable car costs about $1,800; and
• A first class 16 foot electric car costs about $2,200.
• Rates: Electricity, 1; horse, 0.54; cable, 0.81.

I believe, however, that the mechanical system is bound to work material changes in car construction, in fact it is almost imperative. In all probability a car with 15 to 20 per cent. greater seating capacity than the horse car can be constructed on a different plan for the price given for the electric car. This price, it must be noted, is the one for attachment of motor to the present horse car. The horse cars produced to-day are most carefully planned, thoroughly built, and admirably adapted to their service, but the inexorable law of progress decrees their extinction, for something better.

Motive power. To represent clearly the costs, etc., of the three systems under this head, let us assume a road. Take, if you please, a double line 6 miles long, and operating 24 cars with speed of 6 miles an hour, and running 20 hours out of 24. This would call for 48 horses on the track and 192 horses in the stables, or a total of 240 horses; at $160, counting harness, etc., this would cost $38,400.

With electricity we will proceed as follows: The weight of car with 30 passengers and motor attachments would be about 9,000 lb. It is easily calculated that to propel the same at the specified rate on a level would take about 1.75 horse power, a total of 42 horse power. To make allowances for grades we can calculate that, if the entire road was one gradient of three per cent., each car would take about 6.4 horse power, or since only 12 are going up, a total of 76.8 horse power. It will be fair now to take the average of these two, or 59.4 horse power for an average road. Allowing 35 per cent. loss from engine to work done in actually propelling car, we would have to have 91.3 horse power. Allowing a good safety factor, it would be well to put in a 150 horse power plant. This would cost complete $7,000; necessary dynamos, $3,500. Among these figures should be counted cost of conductor of sufficient size to allow of but three per cent. in energy to overcome its resistance. This I have calculated using a potential of 600 volts; and find that the total cost of six miles copper conductor is $16,000 with above conditions. The total cost is now seen to be $26,500.

As to cables, since the recovery of energy available for tractive purposes is but 35 percent., then the engine of 169 horse power represents what must be had. Allowing a generous factor of safety, let us say that a 250 is all sufficient. This would cost complete and erected about