The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-03-26
COAL THIEVES.
Thousands of Tons of Anthracite Stolen
Annually While I'm Transit.

Thousands OF Tons of Anthracite Stolen
Annually While in Transit.
"Anthracite coal won't melt or
evaporate or blow away while in transit
from the mines to Market" said an
official of a railroad, a large share of
whose business is in the carrying of
coal; "but no train of coal ever got to
its destination yet that had as much of
its cargo by good many tons as it had
when it started. The public no doubt
reads or hears, every now and then, of
some great corporation arresting poor
persons who have been detected in fill
ing pail or basket with coal from a
coal train at such and such station
where the train has stopped. Nine
times out of ten the public has eX-
pressed its indignation at such soulless
acts on the part of the rich company.
The fact of the matter is the company
always knows just what it is doing
when it makes such an arrest, and ex-
perience has taught it that these same
unfortunate coal gatherers never have
less than ton or two stored in their
cellars which they have gathered from
the company's cars.
Every station along n road that
carries coal has its complement of coal
thieves. Many of them are actually
engaged in the business of selling coal
to others, and have been for years, and
yet they never paid one cent for their
stock of goods. Our detectives at a
well-known station on our road once
obtained information that warranted
them in making raid in particular
part of the town at the houses whose
occupants We're never known to have
purchased ton of coal. Stored in the
back yard and sheds of one man. who
was a well-known local eXpressman,
they found twenty tons of coal. He
made business of dealing in coal. On
the premises of another person, whose
three male children had not long be-
fore been arrested for stealing coal
from our cars, which act raised Il great
popular cutlery against the hard
hearted company, were found five tons
of coal of all sizes snugly stored away.
That raid revealed the presence of more
than one hundred tons of coal in differ
ent premises, the very character and
circumstances of whose occupants
made it impossible for any one of them
to have at one time more than half a
ton of coal on hand if it were honestly
procured.
"These coal thieves are so shrewd
and so systematic in their operations
that they can relieve Il train of many
tons in the course of an hour. The
largest operations by them are carried
on at the termini of divisions of the
railroads, where the trains frequently
remain for several hours, and where
the yards are full of trains switching
and running to and fro, thus making it
difficult to watch the coal and detect
the thieves. 1t is estimated that at the
one station l referred to not less than
twenty tons of coal are stolen from our
company every day in the year. Hun
dreds of persons are engaged in the
robberies, and ten or twelve coal trains
stop in the yard every day. Many
farmers in the surrounding country
obtain their entire supplies of coal
from these thieves, and one of these
agricultural gentlemen, well-tO-do
and well-known citizen, was discov-
cred late one night with a two-horse
wagon drawn up alongside a coal train
in an isolated part of the yard, into
which he was coolly shoveling a load
of coal. He had thought to get his
fuel even cheaper than he got it from
the rObber dealers. but to escape arrest
and puni..iment he settled with the
company at figure that would have
paid for his coal for five years.
1.-The station yard thieves are not the
only ones that tighten the burdens of
the coal trains. Trainmen have their
customers all along the line, and as the
trains pass by they throw Off lump
here and lump there for half mile
or SO. by which time they can relieve
the load considerably. We have fixed
this little operation on many employees
in times past, and know that others are
engaged in it daily, but it is difficult to
detect them. OF course the figure can
not be told exactly. but from estimates
based on facts that we know, we are
satisfied that this company alone loses
fifteen thousand tons of coal every year
through the operations of thieves. or
not less than forty thousand dollars in
cold cash. We are only one of several
coal-carrying companies, and their an
nual losses are fully as large, if not
larger. than ours l believe that two
hundred thousand dollars would not
pay for the coal that these much-pitied
poor persons steal annually from the
companies, and so expert are they in
their operations that it is seldom, in
comparison with their numbers and
the regularity of their visits to trains,
that any of them are detected in the
act of stealing.-N. Y. Sun.