The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1903-11-20
ROUSING TRAVELLERS.
Keeping Sleepy Passengers Awake
in the Stations.
Railway Employees Have Got 1t Down
to Almost an Art-SOme who
Are Very Hard to
Handle.

In every waiting-room of big rail-
road station there is special officer
whose duty it is to keep travellers awake.
OF course he keeps watch for profess
sional loafers as well, but his principal
duty is to see that waiting passengers
do not sleep over train time.
In Broad street station, the Reading
terminal and the Baltimore & Ohio sta
ton, these special officers are adopts at
arousing sleepers. They almost always
do it gently, says the Philadelphia
Press.
After long years of experience, how
ever, waking sleepy railway travellers
may approach an art. In the begin
ming one of the first things to be de-
termined is whether passenger is dead
to the world from travel and loss OF
sleep, or whether he is deader still
from whisky. In either case the officer
has not only the time to make observa-
tons, but every opportunity and in
either face he may read signs of the
better way of proceeding with the in
dividual.
If whisky has been conducive to
slumber, safe and telling method Of
procedure is for the officer to step
lightly but firmly on the mans foot.
High on the instep is the most effective
spot for the application of pressure.
The effect is disturbing, without the
disturbed ones recognizing the source
of the irritation. Two or three passings
of the officer at minute intervals, each
time with the application of police
shoe where it does the most good, are
sufficient for any but aggravated cases
of inebriety.
For these aggravated cases an APP
plication of faucet of unboiled water
alone will do. Regulations will not
admit Of conductors taking drunk
en- man aboard train and he must
be sobered before he passes the gates
Water applied to the back Of the neck
from a half-inch faucet, allowing for
the natural leakage down the spinal
column of the intoxicated one, will do
the work in three minutes. In most
cases these drunken ones are victims OF
cold nights; they go out for something
warming, take too much, return to the
warmth of the station waiting-rooms.
and are drunk in five minutes.
Oddly enough, the drunken man who
is subjected to douche of cold water
seldom resents the treatment. He may
even thank the officer for SOLDERING him
up and may express the most cheerful
countenance at his improved feelings.
The really ugly man to awaken is the
man who by nature is sour, perfectly
sober, and yet worn out with travel
and loss of sleep. Such a man may be
naturally a sound sleeper and hard to
awaken, .and frequently he strikes out
in blind rage, without realizing what
his impulses are. Several years ago a
cowboy of this peculiar temperament
and condition was sleeping in a dark
corner of the general waiting-room,
and the officer went over to him, touch
ing the fellow on the shoulder at the
first, and finally having to shake him
vigorously.
Apparently the fellow was awake,
and it was explained that the cowboys
dill dllCdUJ Ado OCCh SciAS01 OuI etA SSA
the officer had gone away he turned to
find the cowboy sleeping again. To see
if the man was shamming the officer
stood over him for half a minute be-
fore he finally reached down with one
finger and raised the fellows chin until
the light struck into his face.
Instantly, like a jack in the box, the
cowboys eyes glared wide open, and he
sprang to his feet, striking out with
right and left like the kick of mule.
1t was busy mixing up for two min
utes, but the blue of civic authority
won out at the last, in time to put the
cowboy aboard the train for his native
west.
In the main men are the sleepers in
railroad station. Women are more nerv-
Gus and more anxious than are men,
and, while man will go to sleep with
a grip, cane, an umbrella and cam
era piled in a seat four feet away, the
average woman keeps hand or foot on
her valise while she sits awake. 1t is
only now and then that a sleepy woman
will explain to the matron of the WON
ems waiting-room that she has to wait
five hours for a train, and thus have per-
mission to get the sleep that she may
be composed enough to take.
For as to sleeping in stations the gem
eral prohibition of it is simply to pro-
tect the sleeper against missing his train.
The traveller may be distinguished from
his fellow who might come in simply
to find warm place in which to lounge
and doze, and as to the possibility of
persons losing baggage or pocketbooks
while asleep there is little danger-not
enough of itself to cause the order to
keep awake.
Strangely enough, too, of all these pas
sengers coming into the city, the emil
grant and the immigrant, travelling upon
second class tickets at a reduced rate,
receive more attentions and are allowed
more rest than any other class of trav-
elers.
The Best Only.
Sideshow Manager Ito his partner)-
Well have to fire that glass-eater. He's
gettin' too darn tony q
Is