The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1903-12-12
THE ROAD FOR CLOTHES.
Ken and Women by the score who
Get the street Car Companies
{ Pay IalLora, Rilla.

20 G8a 48AAOEAe WA&AAe #
49,
z started to get on q Broadway car
the other night, = said a club man, ac-
cording 10 the New York Sun. when
the motorman, who had slowed up for
me, suddenly turned on the power with
the result that my coat caught ia the
hand rail and was ripped down the
front. / was thrown on my face on
the road, got several bad scratches
and n 81 those fine th%reescornered
cuts in the seat Of my trousers
Z didn't mind the shaking up or the
scratches, but / was sore about my
clothes. and the next day ] went to
the claim agent Of the road with my
clothes in a bundle. and demanded an
order on my tailor or some equally
good tailor for a new suit.
THE claim agent looked me ove
carefully for fully three minutes, then
without asking me a single question
wrote ont an order on the cashier Of
his ONCE for $50. which said was the
value Of my suit.
: If you would rather have an or
der on your own tailor for a suit at
this price. he said, as he handed me
the order, I'll give 1t to you.
az would. I said. So he tore up the
other order and gave me an order on
my own tailor.
'The whole proceeding struck me as
being very queer. l had the number
Of the car on a slip Of paper, but he
never asked me for il. I was pre-
pared to describe the exact circum-
stances OF the accident, but he appar-
emily didn't care to know anything
about them.
MY friend l said, as l put his
order in my pocket, how can you af-
ford to give me an order like this
without any idea of who I'M, or
whether l am an impostor or not?
Why, you haven't even looked at my
ruined clothes
+" Don't want to see EN- he said. I
see you, and that's enough. In this
kind Of eases / don't look at the dam
aged clothes, l look at the man with
the claim. make up my mind in a
minute OF two whether he is on the
square or not and / act according to
my judgment. If | had decided against
you, you would have had to go through
every court in the state before / yield
ed an inch.
'Then he offered me a cigar. asked
me to sit down and then told me 4
rather queer story about clothing
claims. He said:
There are more claims for cloth
ing against us than anything else. Men
and women by the score come here
every month with some damaged ar
ticle of clothing, demanding that We
replace it, as it was injured by one Of
our cars.
There are some fellows, / believe,
who have not bought a suit Of clothes
for themselves for years. They work
us for them.
Some are O~ut-and-out impostors,
others manage really to get their
clothes stained or torn on our cars,
so that there will be at least a SEM
blance of legitimacy in their claims.
The real bona ide clothes claims are
very rare.
GA faVorite trick is to come in and
say that clothes were burned in a
fire in one Of the trolley cars. Just SO
sur as the newspapers print an &C
count Of a fire in M Of our cars there
are two or three claimants for new
clothes, new hats OF new shoes in to
see me.
1t is the same thing with a col
lision. After a collision, whether It's
between two cars. or a car and a
truck, the claimants begin to drift in
the next day. In nine cases out OF
ten these are pure frauds.
81 see all these claimants person
ally. / think 1 can tell the fraud
right away.
Sometimes l allow myself to be
cheated by these fellows, because there
is little doubt in my mind about them,
but in most cases I turn them right
out; and never hear anything more
from them. In other cases | can
tell that the claim is all right.
In your case I know you suffered
this loss through carelessness OF one
Of our conductors or motormen. It
was enough for me that / believed this.
The facts Of the case are not interest
ing to me-"