Evening star., 1901-12-21
Ingenious Schemes Of Bilks to Beat
the Railways.
WORTHY OF A BETTER ORJECI
viii Do Anything to Save the
Price OF a Trip.
TALK WITH a CONDUCTOR

mo, there are not SO many would-be
| railroad bilks nowadays as there used to
be- but there are still enough OF them
moving up and down to keep us on the
alert said an old-time conductor who
is still in harness to a Star reporter who
was on his train running between Wash
ington and New York ''I can remember
when organized gangs Of beats would cap
ture trains and run them to suit them
Selves until they reached their point of
destination. / first began to handle n
punch a bit over thirty years ago. and
then had run Michigan line. The
road PASSED a point In northern Michigan
about fifteen miles from a lumber camp
where hundreds of men were employed
during the timber-cutting season. When
! the srrinG drives We're over 1t was the
! regular thing for these fellows to hike for
the railroad in body and corral a train
| TO maui them to Detroit They caught
my train twice that way, and there was
nothing to be done about it. They were a
| hard lot, many of them chaps with gun
and knife records, and they meant busi-
| ness.
| when they first began their practice of
| grabbing trains for their exclusive use on
| the ride to Detroit without any of them
giving up nickel for transportation the
road issued orders that the trains We're to
| be pushed at full speed past the point at
which the lumbermen usually embarked
The second time that WAS tried there was
a smash-up One train went whizzing by
and the three hundred and odd timber
workers, who were lined up alongside the
track waiting for ii e train to slacken up
at the little station SOS they could hop it
and make 1t their own, were so sore that
when the same train came a-sailing along
with all canvas the next day the lumber
men only tagged it about hundred feet
before it ran into big log that they'd
] 10 fra nn ,rr;, l,,al
had time to slaclIen up little, but the
mess was bad one, and the road up at
that end of the line was tied up for three
days, until the wrecking outfit got things
Strengthened out. The lumbeffien waited
and they collared the first train that got
through. They jumped the train q few
miles before it pulled into Detroit SOS
! they couldn't be nailed by the authorities
| for train wrecking. After that the road
virtually gave up and looked to have a few
| of its trains impressed by the lumoermen
| every spring.
Tough Gang.
IT had two train-loads of them, as I say,
| In different years, and both experiences
| were pretty fierce. On the first trip three
! of the men were stabbed by their rummed-
! I'D mates, and on the second trip on which
L was in merely nominal control of the
| train. five of them were slaughtered in
card and whisky scraps. Every man of
| them had two or three hundred dollars in
! his clothes, but 1 didn't ask them for
tickets or money. valued my hide Just
| as much in those days as do now
| When they seized my train wired to all
the stations ahead, in accordance with in
| structions, and at each station a lot of
| deputy marshals that had been sworn in
for such occasions would stand off at a
| safe distance and gaze at the train. They
| wouldn't show any weapons or make any
| effort to board the train. They were wise
i people. The lumbermen would kick all of
tbs glass out of the car windows and en-
gage In other little pleasantres like that
! until they got off at or near Detroit When
they debarked they were too big and vi
cious a body to be tackled by anything short
| of the national guard, and the Michigan
| governors declined to order out the guard
! for any such purpose. The Michigan and
| Wisconsin lumbermen kept on grabbing
! trains until about fifteen years ago, when
the roads got into the habit of loading
! their trains with big crews of heavily
armed detectives when the lumbermen
| were breaking camp.
An Ingenious Scheme.
| "While the invididual railroad bIks are
not SO numerous as they once were, they
| are mighty ingenious nowadays. Only the
other day 1 dumped fakir whose scheme
was pretty good. He looked like a typical
German or Scandinavian immigrant, with
one of those bulgy peaked caps, lot of be-
! longings jammed together IN a green calico
bag. and all that sort of thing. He had a
| seat in the day coach smoker. / don't often
| have passengers of that sort on my train.
! and SO l was just little suspicious of this
| fellow when l tackled him for his ticket.
| His ticket was the return butt of a round
| trip ticket between a small town in Missis-
| stppi and New York.
1T was limited excursion ticket, and it
| was four months out, of date, and there
fore, of course, no good. handed the
| ticket back to the man with the immi-
grants makeup and shook my head. He
! gaZed at me placidIy without saying any,
| thing. Now. I'm of Pennsylvania Dutch
antecedents. and can jabber a lot of Teu-
| tonic dialects, and tried this fellow on all
| of them. He only shook his head at me
and sat tight. l didn't quite know what to
| make of him, but somehow l had a feeling
that he was blk. I felt that he knew
| that that ticket was no good, but that he
| had 1t figured out that the conductor TAX
| ing 1t up would sympathze with him under
the Impression that he had been victimized
by som. New York swindier. and there
| fore refrain from ditching him. Well,
| went through number Of motions, indi-
| eating that I'd have to put him off the
| train, and blamed If the fellow didn't put
up as good an imitation of weeping as
| you'd want to see. But wanted to be cer-
| tain, for il he could prove that he was what
he claimed to be, and that he had been
| done as to his ticket, l knew that I'd let
| him ride as far as Washington. although
it wouldn't have been rules and regula-
| ttons.
| 1t Failed to Work.
| In one Of the chair cars aft was gem
| tleman connected with the Smithsonian In
| stitution, with whom I've been acquainted
for good many years. He can talk about
any old language that's going 1 went aft
| and requested this gentleman to come for
| ward and see If he could probe the man
! with the expired ticket. He did try the
| man out, and the fellow only stared at him
| with mock stupidity, although he was ad-
| dressed by the scientist in most of the lam
| guages and dialects of Europe, 1 verify be-
| lieve.
THAT fellow said the scientist to me-
| is a swindler. He's got only one tongue
English
Well, BILL said to the fellow, giving
| the pell-rope tug, get your traps to-
| gether. Off you 60
| He opened on me then in about as choice
an article of American hobo-ese as you ever
heard. He damned me for smart Alec
| back to the sixtieth generation. 1t was so
| good that couldn't help but laugh. along
with the other passengers in the smoker /
| dumped him few miles this side of Phila-
| deiphia. He was a plain, everyday bum.
VINO wanted to get south before the cold
q I,..,.