Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1884-09-06

taking an hour daily to get to and from
their homes to the depot, they abandon
their vehicles sleepily at night. often
glancing regretfully at a pile of straw
which il would pay to 60 through were
the demands of Morpheus too pressing to
| be unheeded.
A REMARKABLE ESTIMATE
An intelligent conductor Of Union Line
car. running on SAMSON street. yesterday
| told Press reporter that he had calcu-
| lated the amount of money annually lost
| in Philadelphia street cars at about 49,
600. This was dead loss to the street.
car-using public, and most of it clear
gain TO the employees.
Its great source of revenue, l can
tell YOU" he said, pointing affectionately
to the straw with which the car was
thickly lined. land l defy anyone but a
Vermont Yankee to find nickel that once
gets well mixed up in it without stopping
the car and sweeping out the whole
business, and you may bet wouldn't put
up with that"
ION what do you base your calculation
that $18, 900 in pennies and other curren-
cy are lost every year?" the reporter
queried. almost lost in wonder at the
largeness of the amount.
"Well, that's simple enough" returned
the car man. "It's on averages. There
are 1900 cars running all the time in this
city, and for five months out of twelve
they have straw on the floor of them.
Now if there is ten cents lost in every car
a day for five months, that makes about
$4,000. But that is very low estimate.
have not counted the Summer months
when money is lost just the same as in
Winter. It's true that when there's no
straw the coins are generally recovered,
but sometimes they aren't, and 1900 cars
running about gathering in pennies
collect altogether large sum, even if
there is no straw
Isn't ten cents a car per diem rather
big stretch of the imagination?' demand
ed the newspaper man.
mot bit of it, protested the conduc-
tor stoutly. "Not on an average. I've had
as much as from sixtv-fve cents to a dol
lar dropped during day. You must re-
member that we run eighteen hours and
carry hundreds of passengers. In the
very cold weather, when people reel into
the cars with their fingers frozen, it is no
unusual thing to see person drop a whole
handful of pennies. tell you that there
is perfect shower OF them. The passen-
ger stoops down, gets very red in the face
and gropes about in the straw for his mon
, ev, while all the passengers look at him,
adding to his confusion He soon gives
! his money up as a bad JOB and dives into
, his pocket for more.
"Ah but the drunken ones are the boys. g"
chucked the conductor iublantlv." Round
about midnight they Just throw their mon
0 ey around as if they were travelling at the
expense of the Government
=, "Why does all this make you smile
. when. as YOU have said. it is not the con-
. ductors who slit the straw" inquired the
scribe.
Well" cautiously replied the conduct
or, Thereby hangs tale. Some of the
conductors get commission from the men
up at the depot and some don't. don't
pretend to say who does and who doesn't,
but know we can throw lot of money
in the way of the depot fellows if we like.
Haven't YOU ever noticed conductors rak-
ing around in the straw for money dropped
by some passenger? As rule he only
makes belive to find it, but when the pas
senger is an irascible old cuss with fiery
temper he sometimes tries
PERSISTENT PASSENGER.
What made me say just now that a
Vermont Yankee is the only person who
can recover pennies in the straw is this
he went on. "Some time ago, when was
running a car on the Columbia Avenue
branch, woman Vermonter got in at the
Market Street wharf to go to Ninth and
Arch. She was angular. razor nosed and
eagle-eyed. At Fifth strert she paid me
my fare. and at the same time dropped a
nickel in the hay. She squatted right
down and raked her umbrella all around
the car in vain endeavor to dis
cover the whereabouts OF that coin. At
Ninth and Arch told her it was time to
get off. Young man, she said in strange.
squeaky voice. Il haven't found that nickel
yet, and she continued poking around. |
took her out to Tweuty-third and Column
bia Avenue, and she stayed in the depot
looking for her money till the car was
ready to start again on the down trip. but
she found it, and. before going, remarked
viciously to me that had better live a few
more years in the world before | tried to
swindle her out of her hard earned saw
ings."
The reporter found that at the depots all
the employees spent some time among the
hay. One of them told him that if the
companies could invent machine to sift
out the money they would add lot to