The Sunday Car Question Once More

image 1image 2image 3image 4cropped image 1

THE SUNDAY CAR QUESTION ONCE MORE.

Our readers will recollect the position which this paper assumed at the time when the Sunday Car question first began to be agitated. The Times was the first journal which gave voice to the wishes of the public in general for this additional convenience and facility of intercourse between the different sections of our city, and we continued to advocate the measure warmly and consistently until we saw it prevail. We believed at the time that it was really called for by the people and that it was unjust to debar the poor man from the usual means of travel on that day for such purposes as seemed good to him so long as they were harmless to the community, while his richer neighbor might roll along the avenues in his luxurious carriage. We honestly believed that no harm would come of it and that a mutual benefit would result to the Railroad Company and the public.

Many people thought differently. The proposed arrangement met with the warmest opposition. A very large portion of the most moral and religious part of the community cried out against it and no doubt honestly believed that it would be a fruitful source of "demoralization and crime, immorality and rowdyism," Ministers preached against it, Young Men's Christian Association protested against it and (most pressing argument of all!) the Company doubled whether it would pay.

What has been the result! Nearly nine months have elapsed since the cars have begun to run on Sunday and the experiment (for it was but an experiment, at first) may now be considered as having been fairly tried. Rev. Mr. Hatch, one of the first to identify himself with the movement has addressed letters to two public men who may be supposed, above all others, to be "posted" as to its effect, both moral and pecuniary.¹ In answer to Mr. Hatch's inquiry as to whether the public peace had been endangered, or whether a special or Sunday police had been appointed, as some of the opponents of Sunday cars had said would be necessary, Deputy Superintendent Folk sends the following short but satisfactory reply:

CITY HALL, BROOKLYN, Feb. 12, 1858. Rev. Mr. HATCH:—Dear Sir—

In answer to yours of 9th of February, I can only say that I have not heard of any increase of "crime, immorality or rowdyism" since the running of the Sunday cars. There has been no special or Sunday police appointed.

Yours, &c., JOHN S. FOLK.

In answer to an enquiry addressed to Mr. A. P. Stanton, President of Brooklyn City Railroad, Co., whether, as the religious journals prophesied, the cars had been "filled with the veriest rabble" and whether "church-going people" had been "unwilling or unable to ride in them" and also whether any deleterious effects on man or beast had been perceived to result from this Sunday travel, Mr. Stanton replies in the negative. He says there is "better order, more decoram and quietness in the cars on that day than any other day in the week." Thus far he "has never heard a complaint of any disorder or impropriety of conduct," and the cars are frequently thronged with orderly, church-going people. Pecuniarily the experiment has been a most successful one.

After all the Puritanical outcry therefore, about the evils that were sure to result from this additional convenience to the great bulk of the public, we find that the doleful predictions of the croakers have not been verified and that common sense and common justice have triumphed. This whole business carries with it a moral which hardly needs to be pointed out.

---