The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1881-11-01
ROBBING RAILWAYS.
The Confessions of a Dishonest
Ticket-Scalper- How the Rail-
ways are Defrauded.

Doc" Iamm. tickct->ralper. now
under arrest in Detroit. has made con
ics>i"n which covers loriy-Iwo pages a.:
printed matter. and contains some inform
alton which the railway managers m.,
find valuable.
The first crooked business ! had :nv
knowledge of WAS the u>e oil acid tn erase
ink. IL would also erase words that arr
pun on the face of the ticket with those or
dinarv rubber stamps, hut il would not
touch the ribbon STAMPS that agen,s used
in stamping the back of ticket II was
used very frequently. For instance the
New York Central road issued tickets a,
Rochester and other places, but prin-
cipally from Rochester Ii issued tickets
reading from Rochester 10 Suspension
Bridge, and from Suspension Bridge
la Detroit, and from Detroit To- Chicago.
over the Michigan Central. and they
would take a frst-class form, and they
had a rubber stamp reading second class.
Ii wa> just an ordinary stamp with second
al the top and class at the bottom. These
tickets were Of 4 lavender or pink color.
forget which. but by putin. them I'm tn.
acid II would remove the stamp second
class that the ticket woull read first
class. Ii would also change The coioroi
ihe ticket and leave il plain white. We
used Ia sell these iirSeI> for fir>t-clas-.
We would give about - ~ iur them. and
~ changing them We would 80; x III The
same wa> dome with tickets over III. Grand
Trunk. Then there wa> 4 plain white
ticket is>Ged ri London. Can. read
ing over The Cir at W,>i.rn railroad 10 Ee-
II
distance out on the Michigan Central.
such u lI,ilanti or Ann hr:~r. Whrl,
the ticket came io Detroit there would IL.
a coupon reading from Detroit Ia som.
local station OH the Michigan Central. the
name al the station lring written i'm. Bv
using the arid il would erase the writing
Of the name Uf the local station. and then
II would he from Detroit to station.
All We had la do WAS To ill the station or
destination. We Isel io fill i'm kcusiny-
ton that Is suburban station outside al
Chicago, and that made the ticket worth
- much Il, Chicago tickets. We would
pay twenty-five or thirty or thirty five
cents apiece Tor them and sell them inr
500 apiece.
Another dodge WAS that rc>urlcd with
tickets. that had bcen punched They
were Michigan Central tickets, and wcr,
>oid Ia l.amm bv 4 stranger. We came
10 the conclusion saws l.amm, THAT IL
MAS some brakemcn who took care al the
conductors vall>e and used To go through
il and steal tickets that had been punched
lie would get those card tickets. Detroit
10 Chicago, or vice versa. and surpo>e
he would usually chew upa piece ui pa
per OF exactly the same color and max. "a
paper mash and ill up the punch hol,
with II and Let il dry IN there, aud you
could not detect il unless Won were an
expert, especially on night train
with an ordinary light. IL
was almost impossible Ia discover IL at
night, but in the day time IL Wis plain
enough when YOU looked al /, closely
The man WAS finally discovered, hut h:s
lather came down handsomely and settled
the whole business"
There i scheme" said Lamm, "a
system of some kind by which tickets are
sold and rode Oh from Detroit TO Buffalo
more than once. | am under the impress
sion that conductors. or sleeping car con-
ductors, are standing I'm together and they
take the tickets up and don't punch them
The firm Of -, Rochester, are ticket
brokers for several diff, rent railroad com
psnies They form the outlet Tickets
are sold to them, and they always used To
send us i lot Of them every week, for
which We would remit the money. They
we're always first-class tickets from De
Iroii To- Buffalo, and had all been used be-
fore This business is probably going on
all the time hut there Is NO way oi getting
.,n To- il unless You can find out who tn.
man l., because there are no crasurcS or
changes made in the ticket. That is done
Nv not punching the ticket. 4 great MANY
conductors have confidence enough i'm the
car conductor To- let him take up
the tickets. Ii they take up twenty, for
instance, they can put four or five in their
pockets and hand the balance to the con-
iucior."
ITEMS FROM APPLETON.