The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-10-24
ANOTHER REBELLION.
TPeckS San.l

gems from the slavery imposed by their i coloEed masters. TwentY-hve years ago hundreds of thous ands of white lives were sacrificed to make colored men eligible to positions as porters of sleeping-cars, and now these same colored persons have got 1 the white people under the iron heel of a 1 oespotiSm that is pretty tough, according to the complaints of the travelling men. 1 The Cincinnati Merchant Trase!<v, or gan of the travelling men, asserts that i've million dollars year are paid to porters on slee ping-carS, which should be paid to them by one man, Mir George Pullman, and an organization is being formed to put stop to the custom of feeinE porteTs, It Is claim cd that the porters are hired by the sleeping cat company for few dol lar a month, twelve or hiteev, and that they are given carte blanche to prey upon passengers The principle is the same as though letters 0, matQue and re pms 4l were issued by the car companies, empowering the porters to levy on the passengers for enough money 10 support themselves. The good Mir. Pullman gives the poTters enough money to buy neckties, and breaStpins and an oCcasion- al pair of shoes, but their families, If they have any (and most colored men have
 somebody depending upon them for sup
 port), have to cat, dI,nk and be clothed,
 and IL Is perfectly natural that the portcTs
 should work the passengers for deceNt living. The passenger who pays two dollars for a bed on a car, which IS twice
 as much as he would have to pay for a
 better bed in the best hotel in the coun
 try, usually has a quarter to spare, and fl
 the porter seems to be a deserving sort of
 d fellow he gets 1t very freely but the
 passenger cannot help feeling, when he
 thinks Il over that he has been swtndied
 out of a >out a dollar and quarter. The
 travelling men, by their ofxan1ed action
 and refusal to pay the porters may hurt
 the coiored he chambermaids at the out
 set, and it will seem pretty hard, but II
 viii bc the better for the portsts TT the
 end. They can strike and let Mir. Pull
 man make up his o@n beds for a tew weeks, when he will cut of some coupons
 from the bonds be has accumulated by
 not paying hts help, and pay them sala. ries they can live on, and all will be
 lovely, and he can put up notices in hts
 cars requesting passengers to pay no gratuitV to the poTteTs The travelling men have gone at this matter right, but 1t will re luITe nerve to press II to A sue cesstul inclusion. For a tune the tfav-
 elers who do not whack up with the por-
 ters will be spotted, and they will be an
 noyed until they become sIld. Portets
 who know they are not to receive guar. ter will make up beds when they get good ready the lower berths will be al taken
 and the quarterlcss passenger will we to take the top shelf His bagg lge will get mixed up, or lost, his umbrella wiil never show up at his de>nnauon, and hIs shoes will be kicked to the flT end of the
 car, au he will he vat down on m d ter
 rible manner There will always be one
 or two passengers who will no, Ioin the reformers, and tbey will pay the poTIers, and receive all the ateution while the re-
 formers will be pointed out and laughed
 at and considered beneath the not e of the coloEed porters. It will take gall 10 succeed in this reformation, and fl the
 company does not come down and en- courage the porters 10 be mean, lie on sles ping-car will have terrors that II never bad before. But people who wiped out slavery and took the Colored race from ! the cotionheld and sawed 1t off on to Mir Pullman, C>n do the deed m tune. ' However, there can be no great reform in , sleeping car prices and practices of ex- ior,ion UT til each great railroad owns its own cars, and no one man has monop- oly. If each railroad owned and man
 aged its own sleepers, great saving could be made m help Instead of d
 Pullman conductor, lii maJor-ecnefal s
 uniform, and an assistant 10 watch him,
 and a colored porter or two to watch both
 oi them, | cham oerm aid would be all the . crew needed on a car. The train com
 ouctor could attend to the tickets aad collect bed money, and the chambermald could make up the beds before the ram started. That would be big thing, 10 have few beds made up about dark, and ' bed need not cost more than q dol AT.
 As it is DOW, you stAtt ou. of Chicago at evening and the porter does not begin 10 : make up beds until about nine 0 clock when the first old lady wi,h the headacne : wants to retire. From that tune until : haIi past eleven there is constant : squesking of upper berths being pulled . down and showed up, pillows and sheets ( and mattresses, and blankets full of dust
 hli the air, and the perspratton of the
 huTrying and excited porter combined with an occasional hot box, makes an ,I cdor that IS stii,ng and when half a
 dozen pa ssngefs arc clamOnng 70 have , theu beds m de up n,x', and ,ne DOT CT . has to sand them if II gefs 90 thl' sleep , IS out of the question. When man is : mad, his lung, full oi lint and dust, and . odors that are not of Araby tbe bies,, and he is unable 70 begin to sauck h,m self until eleven ihihy, and he knows that < somebody wiIi get up gt haii-past fise In | the morning and have bis berth ra ide up, H he does not Lay his head on the con
 densed piilo~ and pull the shor'-stop
 blanke, over hm with Ina, peaceful feel r ing that man Ougdt 10 who IS Go;1G .n u sleep two doilars and twenty-five cents worth ID 6us or five hours. The sleep . Ing-car servIcs ha, bean great ooon 10