Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/40

 24 road, circulated about, centering on the supposed rotten piling along the meadows and the imminent collapse of the drawbridge. The editor of the Flushing Journal, out of a sense of fair play, personally investigated the charges and proved them false; however, he advocated a boycott of the railroad and urged his readers not to patronize any merchants who remained open on Sunday to accommodate Charlick's irreligious customers.

Stung by the vehemence of the opposition, Charlick withdrew his advertising from the Flushing paper, but the editor had the satisfaction of noting that Charlick's own superintendent, William M. Smith, ex-receiver, and conductor Thomas Corning, found Charlick's autocratic rule intolerable, and resigned their posts on the road. Flushingites also had the satisfaction of seeing Charlick's Sunday service prove a financial failure. There were too many other resorts elsewhere where accommodations were cheaper and the patrons more welcome than in Flushing. The spectacle of numerous uniformed sheriff's deputies at the depot and along Main Street, ready to pounce on violators of the Sunday liquor laws, was not calculated to stimulate Sunday excursions to Flushing.

The hostile newspapers also publicized incidents on the railroad damaging to Charlick. When the ticket-sellers were slow to issue tickets and forced the patrons to pay full fare on the cars, or when the conductors arrogantly abused their authority and ejected passengers, the incident received full coverage in the press. When a passenger who stepped out on the platform of a way station for a moment was adjudged to have broken his trip and liable for an additional ticket, the papers dryly suggested that the conductor was merely aping the manners of his master. In September Charlick again revised his timetable and again without consulting the interests of the riding public. By the end of the year, however, the steam ferry competition of the Enoch Dean was obviously causing some concern and there were rumors that Charlick was about to start a counter-campaign by buying new engines and cars and offering hourly service at a reduced fare.

Before any such change could be undertaken, the owners of the New York & Flushing R.R. decided on the removal of Oliver Charlick from the management of the road. Although he had made physical improvements at Hunter's Point, in