The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-03-20 00:00:00

THE CONDUCTORS ON AMERICAN

RAILWAYS.

The following Is an extract from one of thp interesting
letters that have appeared in the Daily Telegraph (written
by their Special Correspondent) under the head of "America
Revisited :
- -

. . . "In the course of my wanderings I have been
fain to go over the lines of half-a-dozen companies in
the course of a single,day. Each change of proprietary
involves a change of conductor, and each new
conductor proceeds to demand your ticket. I
have run over a whole gamut of these officials
between morn and dewy eve. They vary con-
siderably, both in a physical and characteristic
aspect. There is the lean and long conductor,
gaunt and full-bearded, and very often as crusty and
ill-conditioned as an English tolltaker at a turnpike
gate. There is the short and fat conductor, who can
be civil and even affectionate in rather a patronising
manner. Tnere is the youthful and beardless con-
ductor on his promotion, who is in rather too much of
a hurry to become President of the 'United States
or Collector of the Port of New York—l would
rather be a collector—and who on slight provo-
cation is not indisposed to be insolent. In the
main I have found these railway conductors to
be very good fellows, and very often humorous and
obliging fellows to boot. I have met from time to
time with absolutely brutal and hoggish types of the
species, but they are few and far between in compari-
son with the good-natured specimens who meet you
half way in the direction of mutual conciliation and for-
bearance, and are prone to address you as '
Judge,' or Doctor,' just as their physiognomical
acumen leads them to assign to you a grade in. the
social scale. Same of these gentlemen are clad in a
more or less handsome uniform, but almost in-
variably their linen is immaculately white, and they
wear gorgeous gold watches and chains. Large signet
rings are not uncommon on their fingers, and they are
especially addicted to showy cameo breast-P"l5 and
sleeve-buttons. Their pay, so I casually learnt, averages
some seventy-five dollars- say sixteen pounds a month
—hilt they get no tips ' from passengers. The only
official on an American railway train who is 'tipped'
is the sleeping car porter, who acts as bootblack and
bedmaker, and who is usually a negro. He will per-
form a score of kindly little offices for you, grinning
all the while, is quite a Chesterfield with the ladies,
and is offensively grateful for a gratuity of half a
dollar. On the other hand, when the conductor makes
his round of the cars at night in quest of tickets, he is
generally accompanied by an attendant—a kind of sub-
dued Caliban, who holds a huge lantern, by the light
of which the 'boss ' inspects, and very narrowly does
he inspect, the travellers credentials. In the States
you purchase your railway ticket anywhere but
at the depOt. I suppose that they sell tickets
there, but I have never essayed the experiment of ask-
ing, for any. There are railway ticket offices at every
hotel and at nearly every cigar store; and tickets are
not only the (Meet of purchase and
~ssle but of barter,
' swop,' and 'trade ' generally. here are tickets
limited and tickets unlimited, varying in price
according to the number of days for which they are
available. There are round trip'—which are some-
thing more than return, tickets; and, finally, there
are ' scalp' tickets, which you can deal in and dis-
count, and do all manner of things with short of
deceiving the wary and experienced conductors." . .