The first cables we had on our road were made of a composition of iron a beautiful, soft sort of stuff; but when it came to really hard work it was of no use; it would not last over sixty days. We are running to-day in the heart of the city of Chicago at the rate of ten and a half miles an hour for two miles; for two miles further south we operate at the rate of eleven and a half miles per hour, and from that point south three miles on one line and five miles on another, we are operating at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. That is not what we do one day, but it is every day the year round, and we have been doing it for some considerable time. You take rope made of iron and put it through such an experience as that, with the grip grappling the cable with long trains of three and five cars, stopping at almost every block, and grappling the cable with power enough to start these trains in motion and keep them in motion, and the iron rope would not last thirty days, but with the crucible cast steel we succeed in always getting sixty thousand miles of service; about ten months of wear, and sometimes fourteen months. We have had as high as fourteen months' service from a single rope, and that without any breaking of the strands or anything of that sort. We have got as high as one hundred and five thousand miles of service from a single rope running daily at the rate of fourteen miles an hour.

The metal composing the grip is also an important feature. The grips are lined with a species of brass, and some other metal combined. We find that the linings give thirty days' service, and after the linings are worn we melt them over and fill in the jaws of the grip with fresh metal. In our section of the country, where the grand old northern storms come with the fury of the demons, you want the cable system to clear the track. We have snow at times four feet deep; and we who have been through the work of clearing the tracks with horse power know what it is. Pulling our horses nearly to death in the day time, and working them at night on the snow plows, until it is perfectly heartrending to see the effect on the stock; but with the cable all you have to do is to throw in a little more coal and the machinery pulls the rope along and with it the plows and sweepers and the snow is scattered. We have an additional plow that comes along afterward, and throws the snow to the curbstone, so that no objectionable ridge is left near the track. In a region where snow-storms are frequent and severe, the

matter of handling snow is one of the most important in the street-railroad economy. In the city of Boston it is a very important matter. It costs us in Chicago in the handling of snow and removing it from the street, and various incidental expenses, frequently sixty to seventy-five thousand dollars in a single winter, and anything that will help us in this matter of handling snow in the cheapest possible way is a great item with us.

Regarding the conditions which are essential to the financial success of the cable, let me tell you what our experience has been for the last seven years; it has not varied a single year. We are operating one hundred miles of horse car track, in the division where the tracks of which I have charge are located, and we are operating thirty-five miles of cable; and thus we have a good chance of comparing the expenses of the two, and what the merits of each are. The average cost to us on our one hundred miles of horse car track is twenty-four and two-thirds cents per mile per day for each car; it makes no difference whether full or empty. It costs us for our cable work to do the same work precisely, with one exception (and that I will touch on in a moment), ten and one-half cents per mile per day for each car. Mr. Wm. Richardson: About ten and one-half cents?

Mr. Holmes: Yes, sir; only there in this difference, that when we started our cable system, we made up our minds that we would do two things. After taking care of a fair return to the stockholders for money which they had put in, we would give the benefit of whatever difference there was in favor of the cable system, first, to the public; and second, to our employees. The result has been that we have increased the number of cars from two hundred and sixty-three to one thousand, while we have increased our number of patrons from nineteen million to fifty⚫ seven million in a single year. You can see from this that we are giving our patrons a larger number of seats than would be possible for us to do under the horse system.

Mr. Wm. Richardson: Did you reduce the fare?

Mr. Holmes: Not exactly; I will touch upon that in a moment. We have the same fare that we had; but we are carrying the people now at double the rate of speed that we did with horses. We were formerly carrying them at the rate of six or seven miles an hour; now we do it at an average of eleven miles an hour. This is a great advantage to our patrons, and it is appreciated.

On the point of reducing the fare, I will say that we give transfers from our horse to our cable lines and vice versa, and whereas we formerly had two fares, one of five cents inside the city and another five cents outside, we now charge a single five cent fare. With our vast network of tracks we are enabled to transport passengers from any single point to any other point in our whole district for five cents. There was one exception that I wished to touch upon in the matter of expense. While it costs ten and one-half

cents per mile for each car by cable, we are paying our drivers and conductors on cable cars more than is received by those on our horse cars. On our horse cars we pay the conductors and drivers alike. If the cable cars were operated at the same rate of wages as the horse cars (and this, I believe, is done in San Francisco), then the cost per mile for operating by cable would be a little less than one-third of what it is to operate by horses; where it would cost us twenty-four cents by horses, it would cost us eight cents by cable. I do not know whether I have covered all the points, but it seems to me I have said enough. If there is any question any gentleman would like to ask me, I shall endeavor to answer it.

Mr. Harris, of Cincinnati: I noticed in the reading of the report that the gentleman claims if you take a second hold on the cable with the grip, it is liable to be injurious to the cable. I will refer you to a case in Cincinnati. We take hold of the cable on the level road; and when we climb a grade of ten or twelve feet, we are obliged to take a tighter hold in order to make the grade. Is that injurious? I do not mean to let go entirely of the cable and take a fresh hold, but simply to tighten up the hold.

Mr. Holmes My judgment on that matter is that after the car is once in motion, you can tighten up the hold without any injurious effect on the cable. All along the length of the track we have carrying pulleys every thirty-two feet upon which the cable runs, and between these pulleys the cable is apt to sag from two to two and a half inches. When the grip takes a hold on the cable it has the effect of drawing in this slack, which will result, if the hold is tight, in giving the car quite an impetus, and when the cable settles back into its normal condition of two and a half inches of sag it will give the car quite a rush, and if the driver is careless and does not loosen his hold on the cable, it will bring a check on the car when the cable has settled; but if he

loosens his hold sufficiently to allow the grip to slip along the cable it will be all right; but after he has got over that sudden check and the car is passing along with the cable, he ought to take a good strong hold, and allow no more slipping through the grip, which is wearing both to the cable and the grip, and in my judg ment it is better to avoid any slipping and consequent wearing, when it can be done without any effect to car or passengers.

Mr. Wm. Richardson: If Mr Holmes will please explain what I have been puzzling my head about I shall be glad. He spoke of the sudden change of power required on the engine when he was speaking of the character of the construction of the engine. Will he please tell us all about that.

Mr. Holmes: That comes in this way: Suppose you are operating two hundred and sixty trains, and it should so happen that two hundred should come to a stop at the same time and start at the same time (that, perhaps, is rather an exaggerated case, and we have no means of knowing the exact number), but we do know that a very large number of trains will sometimes be started at the same instant. Now, where you have that large number, say two hundred trains of four cars each, eight hundred cars in all, take hold of the cable at once and go from a dead standstill to a speed of ten or eleven miles an hour, it is a putting out of force to a great degree instantaneously, and that is what produces the reaction, because the power required to start the cars is much greater than is required afterwards.

Mr. Wm. Richardson: If that can be assumed to take place all at once, it answers the question.

Mr. Holmes: That is an extreme case, but, of course, there is a great deal of that thing done-putting forth a tremendous energy all of a sudden, and from which action, the old-fashioned valve engine cannot recover itself quickly enough. The automatic valve engine, which is very sensitive, recovers itself quickly. We found it necessary to put in larger fly wheels when we introduced our larger engine than we were using before. We had a wheel that was only twelve feet in diameter, and it would not carry the engine over these dead places without a shock to the engine; but now we have put about one hundred and twenty thousand pounds into the fly wheel. There is now enough weight in it to keep its steady motion and carry the force evenly.

Mr. Scullin, of St. Louis: Do you take into consideration the difference in expense?

Mr. Holmes: I am not taking into account the cost of construction in either case, either the money invested in the horse line or in the cable line; but we consider only the difference in the saving. The saving in expense of operation is so enormous that it provides for the interest involved in the cable construction, and leaves a very handsome margin after that.

Mr. Scullin: But you do take into consideration the difference in drivers and conductors?

Mr. Holmes: Everything connected with the operation, including the wages of the drivers and conductors, all matters except interest and dividends, are counted in the general aggregate of expense.

Mr. Harris: I would like to get an answer from Mr. Holmes in reference to the relative strain on the cable in Chicago on a level pulling five, or six, or seven cars in a train and of one car in Cincinnati going up Vine street hill, which has a grade of seven per cent. and over in some places.

Mr. Holmes: I am sorry not to be able to answer your question. I have had no personal experience in operating on grades.

Mr. Harris: I understand that the strain of one car on Vine street hill on the cable is equal to seven or eight cars in Chicago on the level.

Mr. Holmes : If you pull your cars up that grade with big loads, how many cars in a train make the ascent at a time?

Mr. Harris: We have pulled up two cars and had two hundred passengers on the cars at the time.

Mr. Lawless, of Kansas City: Drawing a car on a nine per cent. grade, I understand, would be equivalent to three or four cars on a level.

Mr. Holmes then took the chair and said: Are there any other gentlemen who wish to give us the benefit of their experience in opera ing cable roads?

REMARKS OF MR. EDWARD J. LAWLESS ON THE

CABLE POWER.

Mr. Lawless: Mr. President and gentlemen I regret to say that we have not the travel and have not the population that Mr. Holmes is favored with in Chicago. We have a number of miles of cable line in our town; fifty miles of cable for a population of one hundred and seventy-five thousand people, and consequently