The Indianapolis journal., 1885-12-28
tinuous train rides without excellent reasons
The roads have no desire to prevent PASSENGERS

tinuous train rides without excellent reasons
The roads have no desire to prevent passengers
from stopping over at places along their lines.
On the contrary, they have heretofore made 1t
as convenient as possible for people To do this
very thing. But how has the travelling public
shown its appreciation of the courtesy! SIMPLY
by trying in every possible way, to swindle
the railroads whenever they saw a chance. A
man wants to go to Buffalo-what does he do?
Buys ticket to Chicago, and when be gets to
Buffalo sells the unused portion of his ticket to
a scalper. The railroad is doubly
cheated. First. it carries the original
swindler to Buffalo for less than 1t
takes passenger who is too honest to indulge
in the luxury of cheating the railroad; and. sec
ond it carries another man from Buffalo to Chi
cago at less than the regular rate. The posted
traveller, who cannot arrange TO buy more tick
cts than he intends to use, never thinks of going
to the railroad office for the tickets he wants
He patronizes the scalper. and helps that one to
skin the railroad So it goes, the railroads by
an extension of courtesy have been victlmized
and robbed by the travelling public. The every
day traveller at all times has his eyes open to the
chance to beat the public. And SO widely has
the influence spread that even staid, honest-go-
ing people. who travel only occasionally. have
come to think it quite the thing to deal entirely
with scalpe-s, and assist in whatever swlndle
may be necessary to effect a saving for them
selves Of few dollars. We are glad that the
railroads have decided at last to protect them
selves from the dishonesty of people who claim
to De more than respectable"
Freight Traffic Still Limited by Supply of Cars.
The train records show business to De good
with majority of the indianapolis roads. In
the week ending Dec. 26 there was total of 20.
$50 cars received and forwarded at this point; of
this number 16,06S were loaded, against total
of 19.807 cars, of which Is SIP were loaded,
handled in the week ending Dec 19, and against
total of 16.467 cars, of which l., 666 were
loaded, handled in the corresponding week 1884,
or, in other words. there were received at and
forwarded from Indianapolis last week 496 more
loaded cars than in the week preceding and
3, ,402 more loaded cars than in the correspond
ing week 1884 While the improvement
is quite general in character it Is
the most marked with east and west lines. East
ward the L, b. e W.. c., H: & /: and the C., l.,
ST. L. & G. seldom do heavier busin ess; in
fact. the l., b. & W. never before forwarded SO
so many cars, and the movement of grain, cotton
and merchandise over the Bee-line and the G.,
st. L. 6s P, would have been heavier than for
| many weeks could they have secured cars to fill
orders. The last named roads, however. lost
| quite heavily last week through the lighter
movements of live stock, compared with
either of several weeks proceeding. West-bound
traffic surprises freight men, A light tonnage had
been expected through December, while seldom
| is it heavier than for two weeks past, and the
| volume promises to be heavy for some two weeks
| to come The heavier shipments at the present
| time consist of anthracite coal, coke and steel
| rails and other heavy merchandise, such as
sugar and coffee, shipments of dry goods being
very light North and south roads are doing q
fair business. 80 per cent. of which is local IN
character With all roads local business, as fol
weeks past is exceptionally heavy. Below is
given the number of cars received and forward
ed at this point in the week ending at II o'clock
Dec. 26, as compared with the corresponding
week last year.