The morning call., 1893-03-12
FOR DEAD MEMS SHOES.
The Grim Intelligence Unemployed
Men Are in Haste to Garry.

New York sun.
Jimmy Reiley's lost his job!" said a
rngged-loOking young man In a rusty pea
jacket and blue flannel shirt as he entered
railroad officials Office in Jersey City on
one of the coldesi, snowest days of last
week. "And I'd like to leave my name for
the job O. brakin' in his place, sir"
Lost his job? How's that?"
''Jist got killed up in the yard !" replied
the young man in the pea-jacket.
The railroad official promised to hold the
application under consideration, and the
man went out, evidently we'll pleased
There Is no calling" said the officer, $50
beset with dangers and hardshipS as that Of
a railroad brakeman, especially on a
freight or coal train; and yet were fifty
brakemen killed on this or any other road
to-day there would be an eager and anxious
applicant for each mans place as soon as
the news of his death became known. The
man who was in here just now evidently
saw Brakeman Reilly killed, because it
couldn't have happened long before he
came in, as l have received no official no.
tice of the accident yet, and reports of that
kind come in very promptly. That man
witnessed Reilly's death, but whatever i'm
preston it made upon him was lost in the
fact that the dead man had left place to
be filed by some one else. That prompted
him to act at once, and he lost not q second
in securing whatever advantage he believed
priority of claim for the place might
give him.
Every railroad has a small army of these
anxious and waiting applicants for chances
to step into dead mems shoes hanging
around Its yards and stations. They are
chiefly men who have followed railrnading
all their lives and have lost their jobs in
some way. You see. railroadng is a good
deal like politics If man goes into it
once he isn't worth snap for anything
else; and so II he gets out of it he is per-
petually on the look out for the opportunity
that must come for him to get in again.
There isn't one of the men | refer to who
does not feel genuine sorrow when a
railroader is killed, and few of them would
hesitate to risk their own lives in an effort
to save that OF any train man in danger,
although they might know that the death of
that man would place them in the best
position they could hope ever to fill; yet
they haunt the tracks and the station-yaTds
day after day, watching the switching and
the coming and going of trains knowing
| that some one of the train hands or switch
men is sure to be killed now and then.
Nv hen the fellows of the man who came
here in such haste to bespeak poor Reilly's
place hear of Reilly's death they will be-
moan the hard fate that prevented them
from being present when he was killed and
robbed them OF a chance to reach my ear
first. 1t isn't at all likely that this enter
prisinR young man will be hired in Reilly's
place, although he may be. II he isn't il
will not shake his faith. nor that of any of
the others, in the Importance Of having the
earliest intelligence of fatal accidents to
train men, and being early to my office with
the news and an application, or, il the acci-
dent occurs al distance, TO the office of the
one having authority at that point. There
is one of these men who has brought me the
first news of seven different men he has
seen killed, and he is now, | have no
doubt, watching for another accident with
the hope that he will get the dead mans
inn -