Omaha daily bee., 1884-07-21
BAGGAGE CARRYING
How the Transportation of Luggage
Has Become q Great Business.
Philadelphia Record.

Has Become q Great Business.
Philadelphia Record.
"Whoal WHOA! WHOA" the driver
of a Fifteenth street car swore a fire.
proof oath, the frightened horses reared
into the air, several women in the car
screamed, and an excited by.stander
yelled at the top of his voice. And all
this dreadful commotion and excitement
because a negro porter, pushing a hand
barrow piled high with baggage, had
| spilled an alligator skin valise and q pa
per box beneath the horses feet. One of
the animals crushed the box with his
foot, thereby smashing to smithereens a
fashionably devised female bonnet, no
doubt on it's way to the sea shore to join
It's possessor. An official of the Penn.
sylvania Railroad Company came out of
the baggage.room, ordered the porter
to pick up the valise and the crushed
box and thishubbub was over ina moment.
A reporter followed the official back
into a great room, literally a huge, ill
lighted den, choked with baggage from
floor to ceiling. Overhead was the din
of rushing trains. All around were por-
ters running here and there, pushing big
trucks loaded with every sort of personal
luggage. There were a dozen or more
officials in blue coats and white hats, all
as like each other as two f1eas, giving d.
rections, nimbly lingering brass checks
attached to leather straps, writing In
little books filled with receipts.
SIS much luggage lost or damaged in
the handling2" asked a reporter of one of
these individuals.
SMASHING A MYTH.
"Not 80 much" he replied, las you
might imagine, to read the stories about
the wonderful baggage smsshers. Now
adays, they make the trunks too strong
to DO easily broken. And, as for thebag-
gage carried by commercial travellers, you
might as well try to break a safe. 1t is
made of calfskin securely strapped. The
sailors bag Is another teaser. 1t is made
of canvas, holds as much as three Sara
togas, and will stand any amount of tos-
sing. The fashion seems to be returning
to small trunks and plenty of them. A
family will have ten or q dozen small,
substantial cslf-skin trunks, instead of
three or four big 'Togas'."
"Some trunks, no doubt, have strange
journeysW queried the reporter, spy
Ing a hat-box marked "Grande Hotel,
Vienna"
"Oh, yes" replied he with the white
cap, stopping his flow OF speech long
enough to distribute a handful of baggage
checks among the porters, trunks occas-
ionally make very long journeys, but
there is comparatively little danger if
they are properly directed. Where 30
much baggage is handled, however, a
stray piece only once in a thousand
amounts in a year to u good bit. There
are many ways in which baggage is lost,
but in the majority of cases tho contents
are of comparatively little value. Some
times trunks get misdirected and wander
along from one road to another, the
owners not knowing whero to catch up
with them. Commercial travellers are
the most considerable sufferers. Every
year the railroad companies sell thus
accumulated unclaimed blggagagc, which
embraces many curious articles of lug
gage. The system of transporting bag
gage has been reduced to a science. The
transfer companies collect 1t at the houses
of the owners, IN wagons, check it to
almost any destination, assume responsi-
bility for il en- transit, and unload and
deliver it at the end of the journey. A
man who goes away from home does not,
nowadays, need to burden himself with
even 80 much as al umbrella. All of his
luggage is thus taken charge of by the
transfer companies, and awaits him when
no arrives at the other aud Of his trip.
Most perronsl baggage is sent through
the transfer companies. Special cars are
used for it's transportation, and often in a
very long distance but one change of cars
will be necessary"
HRoPLE WHO CARRY TBEm ALL.
"Do people carry more baggage now
than they used to carry n asked the re-
porter.
"Yes. Baggage means vastly moro
now than II did como years ago. Then
it Wa confined to tho most necessary
articles. Now, with tho improved facii-
itieo, the cheap rates and the handy de-
signs in trunks, bags and valioes people
come unconsciously to pack up and take
away with them many things, often cum
beBome, which they would unhesitatingly
have loft behind them in former years.
So, a baggage car is oftener nearer a
mensgerie than Ia mere assortment of
trunks"
Aside from the hosvy luggage which is
carried to and fro on the cars, is the vast
multitude of hand parcels of innumer-
able patterns, Apartments for the &C
c~omodation and detention Of this luggage
have been aot aside At the railroad de-
pots, and a regular business is made Of
storeing them until called for. Some
times they are not called for, but are
forgotten, and in time find their way In
to The basement, whore they keep com
pany with lost trunks and ~valises.
Within recent years tho business Of
transferring baggage from one point in
tho city to another has grown to large
proportions. L9cal express companies