The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-11-25
THE NOTE BOOK.

their receipts a miniature efngy or a
man which had come all the way from
Maine on the best lines OF which this
country can boast. The tags on It
were almost innumerable, as every
! agent through whose hands it had
come had put on something or other.
The waggish agent at Grand Junction,
who was evidently bewailing a con-
dition that was oppressive, put on a
ticket which conveyed the information
that Paddy Muldoon Qhe dummy on
waking I'D at Grand Junction in the
morning, had asked said station man
to make merry with him on his last
ten cents, whereupon said station
agent promptly informed Mr.. Muldo0n
that beer in that salubrious spot costs
Is cents a glass; or two for quarter.
AT this Muldoon tainted.
A railroad man in speaking Of this
matter said that often things OF that
kind will go the rounds, but he averred
that more humor will be brought out
by sending out fake tracer than
by any other means. AS some of the
reading public may not be sufficiently
familiar with technical railway terms
to spot the meaning Of tracer at first,
or even second, sight, I will explain
that in the service when there is an
article lost, or a car miSlald, the agent
at the point of destination starts out
a letter to the agent from whom the
last was heard about the article, ask
ling him if he knows anything about it.
To this letter he will append any
remarks he has to make and send it
on to the next person who is likely
to know anything of it. Ii the car or
article has been taken far from its
destination through error, the appen-
dages to the letter sometimes equal a
foot in thickness and the man who
has to read them generally goes
around the corner for drink after
doing SO.
A humorous agent in little town
in Georgia some years ago started out
a letter reciting that Miss Jones, a
maiden lady of 50 or Whereabouts, of
the town in which he lived had acct
dentally dropped her back hair while
travelling in the. county and was suffer
ing for the want of it. He solicited
that all agents should give the matter
immediate attention and started the
letter off. Each man on his own line
had whack at the matter and then
the general passenger agent trans
ferred it to another road running
northward. From road to road it tray
eled, going up to Chicago, down to
St Louis, then on to the Canadian Pa
cific, on which it Travelled to the Pa
cific. The Northern Pacific men then
took hold of it and it was carried back
to Chicago. Then some men ran down
to Omaha with it and it was handed
over to the Union Pacific, which
brought it out to Salt Lake.
When it reached the local Office it
had been a year on the road and every
official of any consequence on all the
lines over which it had Travelled had
something to say bout Miss Jones'
back hair. Consequently the tracer
had become a solid mass of letters
foot thick and every letter contained
some six or seven comments, some
witty some wise and some otherwise.
Heads of departments and even gen
eral managers had not scrupled to add
their mite to the pile, and their COM
ments provoked much amusement.
Most Of the men in the Salt Lake office
wrote something about the subject
and the tracer was sent on towards
the coast. In all probability it went
to San Francisco, down the coast and
then back to the east by way of the
Sant5 Fe. 1t may have gone across
the ocean and completed a. tour of the
world before it reached the sender and
have become a vast. unwieldy mass of
railroad wit and wisdom. That it re-
turned to the sender finally there can
be small doubt, as it is a point of honor
in railway circles, that such things
shall be returned.
Another tracer of the same char
acter was started by a letter that was
sent some time in 1880 to the general
freight agent of an eastern road in
which a woman claimed that the road
had lost her rolling pin while trans
porting her goods and asked that it
be found After the freight agent had
enjoyed a laugh over the matter, he
sent the woman a check for a sum
large enough to buy half dozen roll
ing pins and filed her letter away for
future reference, when he wanted to
tickle the ears of some other railroader
with q tale of the ignorance and gen.
eral mulishness of the populace in gen.
eral Some six years afterward the
freight agent, who had since gradu-
ated and become general manager,
handed the letter to his successor as
general freight agent, and the latter
started out tracer on his line asking
if anyone had seen anything of the lost
rolling pin.
The tracer ran from station to sta
ton until it reached the other end of
the line, when the agent swore it had
been delivered to the Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania was positive of a
delivery to the New York Central, the
New York Central of delivery to the
New England Central and so on. Fin
ally, after travelling for two years, and
passing over all the important north
eastern lines, receiving additions at
every station the tracer came back
two feet thick, veritable epitome of
the opinions of several hundred per-
sons as to the disappearance of the
rolling pin. The last letter was from
an agent in Maine, who said that in
an obscure part of his Office he had
found the long sought for implement
of housewifely cooking and discipline.
Attached to his letter was a miniature
rolling pin, two inches long, neatly
whitfield out
The 'sIrredescent Dream at Albany.