The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-05-04
THE TRUNK MANS FINISH.
A Change i'm baggage Handling Too
Good to Believe.
Philadelphia Record.

Philadelphia Record.
Among the things which made a deep i'm
preston on Dickens when he visited this
country, some sixty years ago, were the
arrogance and %roughness of the railway
conductor. At that time this official divided
the many cash fares with the company.
though the division was far from equal. An
interesting evidence of the spread of cul-
ture in America is found in the new rules
just issued by several Western railway
companies. with headquarters in Chicago
rules which are calculated TO make the
conductors of passenger trains study books
on etiquette. 1t is impressed on conductors
and brakemen that they must be constant
ly alert to serve the passengers, and with
distinct politeness. On entering a parlor
car or sleeper they must remove their caps
and they must show unwearying patience
with the most garrulous of timid old ladies'.
When 1t shall become necessary TO eject a
passenger for any reason it must not be
done between stations or with needless Vlo-
lence.
One rule adopted will effect an important
and eXhilarating reform. Trunks are to De
handled hereafter as II they were glass
ware. Long ago the title of the trunk man
was changed from baggage master to bag
gage smasher," the obvious verify of the
latter giving to it a grateful acceptabllty.
The ingenuity of man has never been equal
to the production of a trunk which could
long withstand the maniacal o~nslaughts OF
the smasher. Men who travel much have
paid enormous sums for steel-framed
structures, but these have only inspired
the devoted trunkman TO greater feats OF
skill. There is an art in dropping and hurl-
ing trunks in a way to crack their pro-
tscted joints which can be mastered only
after long experience by a man wholly con-
secrated to the work. Who has not seen a
frail-seeming smasher, with the light of a
fierce ambition in his eye, seize upon a new
and iron-bound trunk which a trained ath-
lete could hardly move, wrench 1t from a
pile of battered baggage by a twist of his
wrist so that it must drop on end and
break down every interior Partition; then,
with another graceful effort, hurl 1t
through the doorway in such a way that
when it has reached the platform 1T must
strike on its corner with a force which
breaks locks and clasps and springs the
hinges? The bungling, burly man of the eX-
press wagon may scratch and tear and
otherwise deface the outer coverings, and
make the c~ostliest trunk look as disrepu-
table as an immigrants box, but 1t is only
the less muscular baggage smasher who
can render a $40 trunk useless by a few ar
tistic swings. which are as difficult to ac-
quire as is the Japanese garrote. The
brotherhood of railway baggage masters
has confined the secret of the art to its
own members. and no man is ever admitted
TO the order without conclusive evidence
that 1t Is the supreme aspiration of his life
never to let a trunk get past him without
a fatal injury.
Under the new rules there is nothing for
the baggage masters TO do but retire and
allow a new kind of men to take their
places. No member of the brotherhood
could endure the heart-breaking spectacle
of trunks gently lifted to felt-padded
trucks and raised or lowered as tenderly
as a collector handles a peachblow vase.
Yet the new rules require exactly this. To
place a trunk on end is to be summarily
discharged. 1t is despair and the end of the
world for the baggage SmaSher.