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dispute this honor. It is just about a quarter of a century ago that the Brooklyn City Rail-Road Company, which then operated seven lines of cars, placed the first of a lot the new style of cars built by John Stephenson upon its lines. Up to that time all of the cars used by the company were made in their own shops and were of the most primitive style of car architecture. They were simple oblong boxes, with the sides carried down squarely within a foot of the ground. The roofs were perfectly flat, or slightly rounded, and in many instances there was no means of ventilation except by the doors or windows. A few of these cars, however, were provided with round tin ventilators in the roof at either end of the car. The seats were flat, straight backed benches, which were cushioned with velveteen, and in these cushions many passengers were carried who paid no fare and these few passengers frequently accompanied those who paid to their homes or other places of destination. These cars were lighted at night by two small sized lamps in tin boxes with glass fronts, placed one at either end of the car. The shutters instead of dropping down behind the back of the seat were hoisted up and held in place by spring catches, in the same way as the shutters on the steam railroad cars are. The windows were also opened the same way, and frequently after a passenger or conductor had, with much labor, hoisted a window, it would drop with a crash.

These, however, were the "improved" style of cars. On the Broadway line, which was the forerunner of the extensive system of street railroads which now centers at the foot of Broadway, in the Eastern District: on the De Kalb avenue road and on the Flushing avenue route of the Brooklyn City road, the old style of stage cars were in use. These cars were built on precisely the same plan as the stages which are now used to convey passengers, free of charge, from the Long Island Railroad Depot to some of the leading dry goods houses on Fulton street. They were drawn by on horse and the driver sat on the box on the roof of the car and handled the reins, the strap by which

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the door was closed and the money of the passengers. The writer well remembers these cumbersome cars as they used to make their way leisurely up the hill on Broadway between Flushing and Myrtle avenues. In addition to the letters announcing that the car ran along Broadway to East New York there was a cabalistic sign on the panel over the door as follows; "John L's", Frequenters of the old hostelry kept by John L. Snedeker needed no explanation of this sign, but to many patrons of the line it was a life long enigma. By climbing to the top of the car a passenger could take a seat besides the driver and smoke a cigar or pipe and thus relieve the tedium of the long journey. The roofs of these cars were built long enough to bear a heavy load, and frequently of a sunny afternoon in Summer the roofs of the cars with men and boys hanging on like a swarm of bees. These cars could only be turned about to make the return journey on a turntable or by making the circuit of a block. The stage cars in use on the De Kalb avenue road were of an improved pattern. The body of the car was mounted on a turntable which rested on the trucks of the car, and frequently, as the horse jogged along, he would turn aside from the beaten track between the rails and the car would keep on its journey with a one sided movement, reminding one strongly of the antics of the Fulton Ferry boats approaching the slip against a strong tide. The Flushing avenue horse cars were also of this pattern. There never was any organized movement of indigent citizens who, by resolution, ordered that the stage car should go, but after the introduction of the improved style of car on its other roads, the Brooklyn City Company decided that these cars were too much behind the age, and accordingly they designed a new style of car. The obnoxious bobtail of the present day would blush to see one of the cars that were then put to use on this line. There was but one platform, and that was on the front of the car. Here all passengers were compelled to enter or leave the car, as there was no door at the rear. After one woman had been