The Cheyenne Daily Leader

: SPENT FOR PLEASURE.

AN ARMY AT SEASIDE RESORTS AND PICNIC GROUNDS.

What New Yorkers Pay for Recreation During the Summer Season—Figures Which Show That the American Tries Very Hard to Enjoy Himself.

A mere glance from the vantage ground which the Brooklyn bridge affords is sufficient to acquaint one with the vast number of craft which ply the rivers and the bay for pleasure purposes only, which carry no freight save such things as the pleasure resorts to which they are bound desire; which have during the warm months no other end than to chase the cool breezes from one point of the compass to another, entirely for the benefit of the million of New Yorkers who are stay at homes. The metropolis is veritably the home of all manner of vessel which may be found along the coast. And they all come here or are at least represented. There is such a demand by clubs and parties for small steamers and barges that they are impressed into service everywhere, and southerners and New Englanders may, while making a round of the Battery any fine day, recognize among the crowd of hurrying steamers many that are as familiar to them at home as the Union Ferry company's boats are to Brooklyn people.

The craft that are used almost exclusively for pleasure are year after year being more surely absorbed by three or four big companies, and by them the rates are so fixed that pleasure seekers desirous of chartering a steamer or a barge and a tugboat have no appeal. There are now in the neighborhood of 140 three decked barges in the harbor that will accommodate 1,000 persons each. They are well built, and are as safe as any vessel so topheavy as they can be. They are almost constantly engaged. Day after day they leave their moorings with crowds of persons aboard and resound with music and dancing and laughter away into the night. They usually carry about 1,000 persons each, and with this number there is plenty of room for all sorts of amusement. Therefore there are in the neighborhood of 140,000 persons daily afloat on these three deckers bound to almost all points along the sound and the shores of the Hudson river.

As an estimate of what these 140,000 pleasure seekers spend to find the prize they are after a few figures will be interesting. Meteorologists place one-third of the four months of warm weather as among rainy or cloudy days. Of course, when the sun does not shine prettily and there is prospect of a steady downpour during the excursion the girls stay at home and for obvious reasons the boys do likewise. Thus there are left about ninety days that may be regarded as fitted for excursions. The revenue of a single day is something like this: Rent for barge and tug, $150; rent for picnic ground, $50. These average charges would make the receipts of the owners of the barges and parks amount to $28,000 a day, but as there are only about sixty pleasure grounds within reach from this city, and as the majority of excursions use two barges, for which the usual charge is $125, this total will be materially decreased. A fair estimate, therefore, of the receipts of barge and tug owners and lessees of picnic grounds would be $17,000. The receipts of the committees which prepare for the excursions are much greater than this. Allowing a liberal reduction, at least 100,000 persons are on the waters of the bay and rivers ninety days out of the summer allotment of 120. It is a decidedly poor excursion where the ticket costs no more than twenty-five cents. The average is about thirty-five cents. For liquors, luncheons, use of swings, and the like at the picnic grounds, few persons among the excursionists spend less than fifty cents, so here is a grand total of the income of the day's excursion of $85,000, which, added to the $17,000 paid to the owners, gives a result of $102,000 which New York's picnickers expend for a day's outing, and which represents a season's total from the class of persons who use barges as means of getting from the city to the pleasure grounds of $9,180,000.

The fact, then, that excursion agents and the like lead an idle and luxurious life during the winter months is not necessarily extraordinary.

But the army of persons carried by the excursion barges is nothing in numbers to the myriads who use the regular routes of steamers to get to the seaside. The season at Coney Island extends over fifteen weeks. The average number of persons who visit the island daily during the season is 32,000, according to the statement of one of the oldest hotel keepers along the beach. The average price of an excursion ticket is forty-five cents, thus giving a daily total to the transportation lines of $14,000. A person, no matter how poor, who succeeds in going to the island alone or in a party and contrives to spend less than seventy-five cents per capita is worthy of the distinction of being the wonder and enigma of his age. At this low average the receipts of the landlords and thousand and one penny grabbers of the beach would be about $24,000. This gives a grand total of $88,000 a day, or $8,990,000 for the season, during ordinary weather. The warmer the temperature is the higher the daily average.

The other resorts reached by regular lines of steamers number about a dozen, but the principal of these are Rockaway and the beautiful Glen Island. The daily average of the former is about 10,000; that of the latter 5,000. The other resorts have in the neighborhood of 8,000 persons visit them daily. At a per capita expenditure of $1.20 apportioned to Coney Island, this would give a total expenditure by the public to get at these places of $27,600. Thus, according to the estimates which are given by transportation agents, 155,000 persons daily leave the shores of New York in search of cool breezes and find them at a cost of $167,600 a day, or $16,038,000 for the season. And yet the libel has gone the rounds of the world that Americans take no holidays, but wear themselves out with continuous work.

But the owners of pleasure boats are not limited to the summer months in which to reap profits. No sooner does cool weather come than there is an immediate exodus to the south by all craft save the steamers which may be used for harbor or towing purposes, and there the work of making money for pleasure continues with little abatement. Few of the big barges go south of Hatteras, but many of the river steamers find their way among the Florida keys during the winter and transport pleasure seekers there with the same impartiality they show about New York. They make quite as much money too, for if the crowd is not so great the prices are higher, and so make up the deficiency.—New York Times.