The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-02-14
STEALING AS A FINE ART.


lines ''the cost of running railroads would be
materially reduced. The trouble is that there is
never time when we do not have good reason
to suspect that we are being robbed by some
trusted employee 1t seems to make no differ
enee how strongly they backed by previous
good character, by strong certificates OF honesty
from those who have tried them in responsible
positions. sooner or later temptation becomes
too strong for them
Not long ago had good reason 10 believe
that one of cur oldest and most trusted con
ductor was stealing. The president replied.
when / mention my suspicious, 1 would as soon
expect to be accused myself The secretary or
the company said, You must be mistaken-that
man is certainly straight The evidence was so
strong that could not he mistaken yet the only
reply could get was. .You have only the word
Of your spotter against the word OF the con-
ductor, and, of the two. we prefer to take the
word of the conductor.
Nevertheless, the conductor was stealing all
the time, and it took about a year to secure the
evidence that finally exposed him.. lie was
shrewd, keen. cautions man of middle age; not
fiashy or addicted to obvious vices. He was
great favorite with the passengers. attentive to
his duties steady punctual, and polite to the
measure of urbanity. and he was never known
TO withhold penny of money that was paid TO
him on his train. His method of stealing was to
withhold ticket and sell it through an agent,
with whom he shared his profits.
''Of course he did not operate through any of
the regular ticket agents of the road His plan
to sell through the clerk Of hotel. at one
OF the principal stations on MS route. lie ran
an express train which stopped at the hotel for
meals, SO that he had ample opportunities TO
confer with his confederate without observation.
The clerk sold only to those whom he supposed
to be actual travellers.
1--WE heard that this clerk was selling tickets,
and the puzzle was TO find out where he got
them. At last of our spoilers went UP there,
and stopped at the hotel in the guize of drum
mer. He drank at the bar, played billiards, hob
nobbed with the clerk, and got into his conf
lanan Thnn ha ZaH an
the train of the suspected conductor arrived,
lounged up to the clerk and said:
g I want to go to-. is there train soong
81 Yes said the clerk, there will be one here
in twenty minutes
a. Isn't there some place near here where
can get cut-rate ticketq inquired the spotter.
'' / do not know of any said the clerk but
/ think can get you a ticket There was a man
here who concluded he could not go on, and
guess he will sell his ticket cheap. Come back
in ten minutes
'"The spotter did as requested. and bought his
ticket at 20 per cent off. When he got on the
train he noted the number of the ticket 1t was
obviously ticket that had been used, but not
punched. He noticed that the conductor pre-
tended TO punch it, but put it in his pocket with
out punching He reported the number of the
ticket, and it was not found in the conductors
return for that train A few days afterward he
went TO the same hotel, and pursued the same
plan. The result was that he bought the same
ticket second time.
Now when reported these facts thought
had sufficient evidence against the conductor.
But his reputation was SO good that he held his
place. Then / tried it again with another de-
tective-not professional spotter police
men. but one of our clerks, in whom / knew our
officials had confidence. The result was that
the same identical ticket bought a third
time, and the strongly backed conductor was
bounced There Is no way OF telling how much
he had robbed the company of by the plan of re-
selling tickets for years,
''As rule we impress II pom our spoilers the ne
cessity of fairness. We tell them that do not
measure the value of their services by the num-
Der of conductors they detect in stealing. All
they have to do is to buy certain tickets at
tain places and deliver them to certain conduct
ors Or they pay certain money to certain con-
ductors When we lind that conductor does
not return tickets, or money that a spotter says
he has paid TO him. we try him in various ways,
and give him every chance
when you consider that conductor handles
from 800 to $500 worth of tickets on a train,
and sometimes more, you see how great the
temptation is. The rules require that at the
end of every trip the conductor shall inclose in q
sealed envelope all the money and tickets
eeived and sign his name. Sporting is, there
fore, easy, and the conductor knows that he can
be quickly detected in Withholding either tickets
sold at stations for his train, money paid in
the cars. The most difficult thing to detect is
such theft as the one have described, because
In that case the conductor always stole ticket
sold off his section.
Our spoilers are Of all ages and colors and of
They are often changed They are sometimes
regular passengers, friends Of the railroad of
ticials, of stockholders. The fact is that dis
honesty is so common that we m ust keep up a
constant watch to root it out Our general
practice is to discharge the discovered thieves in
batch This is often done without causing
their arrest, because we cannot afford to send
good money after bad by prosecuting all
the offenders. We merely keep up wholesale
terror of detection
Occasionally, however. we have prosecuted
some of the most fragrant thieves We had once
on our road conductor who was of the tried
and faithful kind. We had tested him often
and found him honest. But word came from
several sources not to be diSbelieved that he
had gone the way of the many. He was watched
for months by couple of female spoilers, rela-
tives of one of the stockholders, who looked
upon every thieving conductor as possessor of
part of his dividends. The ladies noticed that
the conductor seldom punched their tickets.
Sometimes he would shove over the other
and punch the top We had noticed q
regular passenger, who never was known to buy
aticket at the ticket office, but always had IN
old ticket. 1t did not take long to corner the
two culprits. We caught the conductor one
day after he had sealed and delivered his pre-
rended account of the receipts of his trip.
The result was that we found him glsten-
ing all over with tickets and coin. Tickets
stuck out Of his pockets like quilts upon the
fretful porcupine. The result was, he was
jagged for theft.
MANY devices have been adopted to circum-
vent the thieves The old time conductor with
bank notes crammed between all the fingers Of
both hands and pocketfuls of coin, is thing of
the dim past. The chief checks upon the con
6uctor's thefts have been tickets The tickets
have been got up on innumerable plans for
safety. They have been made costly by the ne
cessity for preventing counterfets, aud some of
them have been constructed with all the artistic
excellence of bank note. The old plan of
using tickets over and over again is about obso-
lete. Tho Union Ferry Company tried it at
great cost and now uses neatly engraved and
printed ticket which is never re-issued The
Pennsylvania Railroad Company could not trust
its ferry masters to take in cash for ferriage
without a check. and so established the plan of
compelling each passenger to buy ferry ticket
Of one ferry master and deliver it to another
Yet even this plan did not prevent the resale of
tickets by dishonest ferry masters AMI pate