Its Immense Length Necessitates An
Enormous Number Of Conveyances; And In Order To Obviate The Obstruction To
Traffic Which Would Have Been Caused By Providing Omnibus Accommodation
Equal To The Demand, The Authorities Have Consented To A Most Alarming
Inroad Upon Several Of The Principal Streets.
The stranger sees with
surprise that double lines of rails are laid along the roadways; and while
driving quietly in a carriage, he hears the sound of a warning bell, and
presently a railway-car, holding thirty persons, and drawn by two or four
horses, comes thundering down the street.
These rail-cars run every few
minutes, and the fares are very low. For very sufficient reasons, Broadway
is not thus encroached upon; and a journey from one end to the other of
this marvellous street is a work of time and difficulty. Pack the traffic
of the Strand and Cheapside into Oxford Street, and still you will not
have an idea of the crush in Broadway. There are streams of scarlet and
yellow omnibuses racing in the more open parts, and locking each other's
wheels in the narrower - there are helpless females deposited in the middle
of a sea of slippery mud, condemned to run a gauntlet between cart-wheels
and horses' hoofs - there are loaded stages hastening to and from the huge
hotels - carts and waggons laden with merchandise - and "Young Americans"
driving fast-trotting horses, edging in and out among the crowd - wheels
are locked, horses tumble down, and persons pressed for time are
distracted.
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