CHAPTER V.THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC UTILITIES.
The streets of practically all American cities, as they appeared in 1870 and as they appear today, present one of the greatest contrasts in our industrial development.

Fifty years ago only a few flickering gas lamps lighted the most traveled thoroughfares.

Only the most prosperous business houses and homes had even this expensive illumination; most obtained their artificial light from the new illuminant known as kerosene.

But it was the mechanism of city transportation that would have looked the strangest in our eyes.

New York City had built the world's first horse-car line in 1832, and since that year this peculiarly American contrivance has had the most extended development.
In 1870, indeed, practically every city of any importance had one or more railways of this type.