Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1895 — The Trolley on Country Roads. [ARTICLE]

The Trolley on Country Roads.

New York Evening Post _ Mr. A. J. dassatt, who has bebn acting as road supervisor in Lower Merion township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, for several years, has laid the people of other localities under a debt to himself by requiring a trolley company, which had obtained a franchise in the township, to widen the roadways at its own expense before laving the tracks. Mr. Cassatt has always insisted that these companies shall not occupy the they are wide enough to accommodate carriage traffic also. The Philadelphia Press thinks Mr. Cassatt has set an example which road supervisors everywhere should follow. “The trolley,” it says, “has taken possession of the city streets, but in so doing it has only displaced the horse cars. In the coun try districts it is parallelling the railroads and seeking every populous district by the public roads heretofore free from track incumbrances. Turnpike companies succumb readily to the overtures of trolley companies, but what is worse, local authorities are almost eager to give up the public roads unconditionallj' to trolley companies to occupy, possess and use them as they please. Just as the State was nearly ripe for country road improvement, the trolley companies intervene and spoil what roads there are and discourage permanent road improvement.” They do not seem to be feeling the hard times very much in Washington. Mrs. Brice paid Ysaye SI,OOO to appear at one of her musicales and gave Melba and Edouard de Reszke an equal amount to appear at another. The widowjof Senator Hearst and Mrs. R. H. Townsend also paid these operatic stars $750 and SI,OOO for their attendance at a musicale. <