Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1910 — RODE IN POOR MAR’S AUTO. [ARTICLE]

RODE IN POOR MAR’S AUTO.

Trip bjr Trailer from RrnpaM to Chlrauro Filled with Incident*. An adventurous traveler has' made the trip by trolley from Syracuse to\ Chicago, a distance of 1,070 miles by the route he took, in forty hours. If he is all right again after a week’s recuperation he will start on the second stage of hts journey to St. Louis, which will mean 1,630 miles in all, If he makes it as planned. This modern Flying Dutchman rides on the trolley, called by him “the poor man’s not with any visionary idea of saving time or money —for necessarily he must have plenty of both to carry out such an experiment—but because he prefers it to the plucratic private. motor car, the New York World says. His specific reason for this preference is that recently he trolleyed it from Manhattan to some country place up in Westchester County, while his friends started at the same time for the same destination by. automobile, and he got there first, having the langh on the joy riders, who were stranded three miles this side of Mamaroneck with a burst tire. Mr. Man’s notebook and records have not yet been sent to Copenhagen for verification, but they sum up approximately as follows: Paid fare 911 times, or at almost every crossing on the suburban lines. Asked for transfers 409 times. Got them nine times, but missed connections. Cash in hand (plugged quarters and pewter or Canadian dimes, which the conductors hand out in change, though refusing to take them), $4.95. Got a seat 11 times. Had to give it up 10 jtimes—and wished I had done so the eleventh, as a woman whose husband had plumped into the only place vacant when they entered stood and glared at me until three or four miles out of Skaneateles. “All out: take car ahead,” 50 times. Wrong side of crossing, car wouldn’t stop, 316 times. Car heated 29 times (this was on a mild, summerllke day, when the atmosphere Inside was suffocating). In favorable comparison with the automobile, the trolley never turned turtle, was not held up for speeding, did not kill pigs or maim agriculturists and emitted none of that disheartening blue smoke which physicians declare is developing a new and fashionable motor disease. On the other hand, the trolley traveler had his toe stepped on and his pockets picked, caught contagious Influenza and was jblted off the car platform in rounding a curve. Take It for all in all, honors are about even between the “poor man’s automobile” and the one affected by the wealthy and fashionable. One touch of travel makes the whole world kin —so may the two shake hands and call the result of the rivalry a draw.