The evening times., 1896-10-07
PLOT To MURDER TRAMPS
New England Train Men Ac-
cused of Shocking Crimes.
VICTIMS BY THE DOZEN
All Men Stealing Rides Must Pay Beer
Money, and II They Fail to Do So
They Are Kicked Off the Trains.
Hailroad Officials Take No Stock In
the Story.

New York, Oct. 7.-AWorld special from
New Haven, Conn, says: Dead bodies have
| been picked up with alarming frequency
| along the tracks OF the Consolidated RAD
| road during the past four months. This
| road is branch OF the New York, New
Haven and Hartford Railroad, connecting
New London with this CITY. -.
| So many men have been found mutilated
On this short ru that it has become known
as dead Mans Run" The police are
now satisfied that murder has been done in
many OF these cases, and they blame the
| employees On the freight trains. According
to the police, the trainmen have deliber-
ately entered into a plot TO murder tramps
who were found stealing rides on their
| trains.
RECORDS LOOKED UP.
Coroner Eli Mix was informed OF this
| gbastly discovery tonight. His records
| of the nIaUy deaths on the railroad were
| locked up in his safe. His clerk could
| not be found. Hardly week had passed
during the summer that body has not been
| found somewhere on the line, lying on
| the tracks nlanglcd by the hundreds OF
car wheels that have passed over it.
Many of them have been clad in fairly good
clothing, showing at the men were prob.
ably OF decent associations, but temporarily
| in hard luck.
Supposed to have fallen from a passen-
ger train" or Killed by the cars" has been
the verdict duly rendered in every Que OF
these cases by the coroner's jury.
These verdicts might go on for years to
come IL it had not been that one OF the
train hands failed in his CHASTITY job. The
! victim lived and sought out the police here.
They investigated and in the course OF
| their search stumbled all over the truth.
A humane brakeman, who could not see
murder done, is said to have told all.
Who he is or on what train he runs the
police absolutely decline to tell. Their
| reason is simple one. 1t would mean
death for that man on the cars some day,
TRAMPs HORRIBLY BEATEN.
1t was Policeman Michael Ahearn who
made the discovery, and Brakeman Edward
]. Dean is under bonds for assault with
intent to kill, upon Mic.ael Mahoney, a
tramp who tried to steal a ride, and
whom Dean shot, after having thrown
him off the train.
brakeman who worked in the same
crew with Dean said he saw Dean beat
a tramp and leave the wounded man on
| top of a moving car.
One brakeman who was approached by
the police said more. 1t was to the effect
| that what Dean had been caught at was
common practice on the trains.
.1f should give this mans name," said
| Ahearn, ''he would lose his job. Then,
some night If he was coupling train, they
| might back up on him at the wrong time,
| and he'd never tell any more tales"
But he told of acts committed by enraged
| or drunken brakemen in the darkness OF
| the night, and then the mystery OF the
| bodies by the track became as plain as day.
He said that all tramps have to pay beer
money. and if they have none are kicked
| from the trains.
The brakemcn are very close-mouthed
| about the matter, and the railroad Off
cals profess to disbelieve the story.