tion,
because it is the best, and being the best is the cheapest. Briefly I
will present the grounds upon which I take my stand.

To-day the only methods for tramway service are three in number:
Horses, with a history of fifty years and over; cables, with a history
of fifteen years; and electricity, with a history of two years. I give
the latter two years on the basis of the oldest electric street
railroad in existence to-day, and that is the Baltimore railroad,
equipped with the Daft system.

The main points for consideration common to each are six in number:

1st. Obtaining of franchise.
2d. Construction of buildings, viz., engine house or stable.
3d. Equipment--rolling stock, horses, engines and dynamos.
4th. Construction of tramway.
5th. Cost of operation.
6th. Individual characteristics and advantages.

Each of these requires a paper by itself, but in as concise a way as
possible, presenting only the salient reasons and figures, I shall
endeavor to embody it in one.

1st. Obtaining of franchise.

I assume the municipal officers and the promoters honest men.

It is the universal settled conviction that a street car propelled
with certainty and promptness by mechanical means is infinitely to be
preferred to horses. Hence, if this guarantee can be given, there need
be no fear from the other side of the house. Years of experience prove
that this guarantee can be given.

The mechanical methods are electricity and the cable. To suit local
conditions the former has three general applications--overhead,
underground, and accumulator systems; while the latter has but one,
the underground. Hence, the former, electricity, has three chances to
the latter's one to meet the whims, opinions, or decisions of
municipal authorities. Other advantages accruing from mechanical
methods are cleaner streets, absence of noise, quick time, no
blockades, no stables accumulating filth and breeding pestilence, and
lastly the great moral sympathetic feeling for man's most faithful and
valuable servant, the horse. These all are directly in favor of
obtaining the right franchise.

The three general ways of obtaining the same are a definite payment of
cash to the authorities, a guarantee of an annual payment of a certain
per cent. of the earnings, and lastly a combination of the two. For
the city or town the latter way is the safest, and the best, all
things considered. As electricity is mechanical, and as it ca