Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 133, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1913 — Humans Are Made Crabs by Side-Seated Cars [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Humans Are Made Crabs by Side-Seated Cars

CLEVELAND, O. Thin, anaemic men who are unable to do a day’s work, and frail little women attain a record for muscular exertion which retold not be surpassed by the strongest athlete every time that they ride in a side-seated street car, according to computations made by Councilman E. M. Bieder. They are compelled to push against a force of probably half a ton every time they make a trip upon one of these cars, he declares. Councilman Bieder has been making an investigation of the subject, with a view to legislating out of existence cars with seats running lengthwise. He doubts, though, that the council has the authority to pass the legislation, and he may take the matter up with the board of health as a health regulation. “Man is not a crab and cannot move sidewise with any degree of ease,” said Mr. Bieder the other day. “His muscles are not formed for that mode of advance. Let anyone who is in doubt on this subject try to run sideways for a hundred yards at a fair rate of speed. “The forward movement of a street car, with its sudden stoppage and jerks, is a constant strain, and mus-

cles which are not adapted to it are compelled to take up the burden of holding the body more or less rigid against the force which sways one rearward as the car advances and forward as the car is checked. To sway the body backward or forward from the hips entails practically no fatigue, for almost every movement of the accompanied by this, but to sway sideways is tiring in the extreme.

“When a street car traveling ten miles an hour is brought to a stop the checked velocity is equal to a pressure of ten pounds upon the area of the surface of every passenger, or when a car traveling at an ordinary rate of speed comes to a stop it is equal to every passenger being pushed from his balance by a ten-pound w light’’