The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1876-03-02
THE RAILROADS AND THE TERRI
BILE SCALPEHS.
An ingenious dealer in railroad tickets

An ingenious dealer in railroad tickets
writes
Editors Democratic. Statesman - In your
issue of the ninth instant there is short
editorial relative TO myself In which there
is an important error as to how the scalp
ing business is carried ON. You say:
Through lines, competing with one an
other, sell for long distances ut reduced
rates; passengers going over part of this
long route, buy tor the whole, then sell the
coupons they have left where they stop,
and thus the railroads are che ated, being
compelled to do local business at prices de-
| fined by compulsory necessity" In this
State there is a legislative enactment defin-
ing the limit which railway companies can
not exceed in local charges; for passenger
traffic this limit is fixed at the very high
charge OF five cents a mile per passenger,
and | know of know of no railway com
pany in this State who have used the dis
cretion the law gives them to fix the
amount at less rate, while, on the con-
trary, there is not a single company in the
State who have not forfeited their char
tered rights by exceeding the limit as de-
fined by law. The compulsory necessity
Gf any exist), is in the corporations de-
manding the last ''pOund of flesh" 1t is
difficult to conceive how a railway com
pany can be cheated, if the price they de-
mand for a ticket is paid to them by the
purchaser; hence it is to competition we
are indebted for a reduction of rates, and
the knowing traveller will always give pref
erence to, and purchase the ''long-legged
ticket" as you call It, rather than submit
to the arb trary local rate, which these cor
pOratIons have the legal right to charge.
Railroad officials have been after the scaper
for long time, and have yet to know of
the first instance in which they have not
benefited the scalper and the traveller (who
knows how to buy, by issuing illegal,
stringent and arbitrary regulations. There
is better brain material outside the railroad
fraternity than there is in l., aud the sooner
they learn how to appropriate it and pay
properly for 1t, the better they will sue
ceed, but at present they rely too much
upon p0acer. w.
If they rely upon power they have GER
taiuly failed to WELD it effectively, as even
''W." confesses. Texas is very sparsely
populated and mainly by farming, non
travelling populations. If there were mere
people moving, as in the denseIy populated
East, rates would be as low here US there
Reduced now, and here, to this standard of
rates, Texas roads could not exist. The
lower the rates, as railroad managers know,
the greater the traffic and travel, and there
fore the interests of the public and of the
companies are identical, and therefore they
dOimport immigrants at wholesale nominal
rates. But there is a point below which
freight and passenger rates cannot now be
rad No I,r +bo
BILE roads aud fewest possible towns and
sparsest population. We must either have
no railways or suffer them to be paid their
honest dues consisting in sums sufficient to
maintain the roadway and machinery and
pay reasonable profit to the owners.
When there are competing roads between
two points the shorter fixes the rate and the
longer must charge the sam; and thus the
opportunity tor the ''Scaprr" arises. The
traveller buys through" ticket from New
York to Houston for a less sum than the
cost of ticket TO Little Rock With the
New York and Houston ticket in his pocket
he stops at Little Rock and ''Scalper" buys
the remainder of The ticket at a heavy dis
count and sells it to some one going to
Houston at a reduced rate. The railroad
company loses the profits on the transporta-
ton of this traveller. The "Scalper" pock-
cts a nice little sum and the traveller saves
twenty or thirty per cent. on the cost of
| ticket from Little Rock to Houston. But
somebody is robbed. We are much in
clined to believe that the loss falls at last
upon the people whom ''Scalper" pretends
to love. Certainly these losses on through
travel must be made up by augmentation of
local rates, and ''Scalper" thus scalps the
innocent public while he pretends, with
uplifted eyes and hands, to bless the poor,
plundered, helpless people. The trick is
too thin, and while this ''Scalper," ''W. :"
boasts of his achievements and boasts, even
publicly, that railroad managers cannot pre-
vent his peculations, the evil is deplnrable,
and railroads are plucked that they may be
forced to pluck the public, ard yet 'Scalp-
er" has the effrontery to boast that there is
no remedy and that railroad managers are
great rogues. ''Scalper" ought to know a
rogue when he sees one, and we are not
disposed to quarrel with him.