PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEN 241 
months since I purchased from some of your then directors 
a majority of the stock of your company at such a price that 
today it sells for more than five times as much as it cost me; 
and at the same time I bought from the same parties a very 
large amount of bonds, and today they sell for more than 
double what they cost me, including seven per cent. interest 
to date. ‘The above stock and bonds I purchased on the ex- 
press condition that the contracts of the company with cer- 
tain parties to build this road for one million two hundred 
thousand dollars per mile, payable one-half in stock and the 
balance in first mortgage bonds of this company at par, should 
be cancelled. ‘The amount that has been saved to this com- 
pany by the cancelling of this contract you all well know.” 
This optimistic report might lead a reader to infer that 
building and operating of the elevated railways had been an 
easy job. It was quite the contrary. Problems were met that 
today would seem impossible but were very real at the time. 
Many people, for example, were at first afraid to ride so high 
in the air and predicted terrible calamities from collapse of 
the supporting columns or derailments that would hurl train- 
loads of screaming passengers upon traffic below. ‘To counter- 
act this attitude, the company induced prominent leaders in 
public life to sanction the elevated system by taking ostenta- 
tious rides on it, so that the faint-hearted would summon 
courage and try a chance in the air. Fashionable ladies helped 
to set the style. For many years, steam locomotives were used 
to haul the trains, as electric motors had not been perfected; 
and live coals and hot water were dropped on pedestrians 
and horses in the streets. ‘The smoke belching from the loco- 
motives blew in the windows of indignant housewives or 
blackened laundry hung out to dry. It even penetrated the 
veils of lady passengers and left patterns of soot on their faces. 
As might be expected from a public-service corporation 
operating in a large city, there were recurrent troubles with 
the workmen. After the Civil War, wages and the cost of liv- 
