The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-06-28

its and had used soft coal ever since
il was built. We never thought of 1t,
but a change in the city map put IL
lust within the city. and one of these
kickers got on To il.
Well he just about lived in the Of
fees of the Health Board after that
until they got so sick and tired OF 1t
that they actually begged US to burn
hard coal so that they could get rid
of him. And then he wrote to me and
told me that if our cars didn't run
more to please him he would look fol-
something else to tackle us on.
a Funny War.
Another man who worried us did it
with a thing that was so absurdly
trivial that il is amazing to learn what
he managed to make of it. We hap
pened to put on a lot of open cars that
we had bought from another company.
The backs of the seats had on them
the stencilled warning: Wait until
the ear stops Nobody in the company
noticed that the word until was
spelled with two MS or, if any one
noticed it, it was not thought worth
bothering about. But this man thought
otherwise. He began by writing a
letter to a newspaper. 1t was funny,
aAAA SAAN k'4CSAdSAt anu 4 lduSAlCO OhCl
il. Then another letter was printed in
another newspaper. In the course of
the next few weeks, somehow every
paper in town had received and print
ed a letter from him. The headlines
that the editors put on their showed
that the papers were amused by what
they thought the crankiness of a
crank, but it was deeper than that.
Darn me if ne hadn't figured the whole
thing out as a way to annoy US.
Those letters being. as l said, fun
ny. captured the public sense of nu-
nor, and as this particular man was
pretty popular he managed to keep
the thing going whenever he met a
crowd that he knew in a car, until
at last the passengers in that partic-
ular section of the town got to calling
out president Mr.. Until, and a politi-
clan who was addressing a Property
Owners Association down there de-
nounced him as a man who couldn t
even write the English language. The
climax was reached when his boy
came home from school one day and
told his mother that the other pupils
had begun to ask him to spell until.
That settled it. Those cars were
hauled into sheds and the stencils
were replaced with new lettering. 1t
cost us about a thousand dollars.
Then this man, too, wrote to our
directors, sent them all the clippings,
and told them the whole history OF
what he called his little reform move
ment. He wound up by congratulating
the president and me on having at last
learned English, and promised to keep
an eye on US and find something else
in case the car service was not i'm
proved.
They Want Only Revenge.
"Of course there's a big lot of per-
sons who are after a railroad company
ali the time for damages-aIways
threatening suit and so on. But these
folk that I'm telling about don't want
anything. They are purely 'unselfish,
so TO speak. They want nothing ex-
cept little revenge, and for that rea-
son they not only succeed nine times
out of ten but they do it in such a
way that we can't fight back.
Our new president headed one man
off only lately. He wrote long four
page letter describing the shortcomings
OF the system. 1t was a bird 1t
wasn't abusive, but, on the contrary
poisonously polite; but it was written
in such a way that every word would
make even a hardened trolley official
vince. 1 was so mad when 1 read it
that l wanted to tear it up and hurl it
out of the window. But our president
dictated an answer in which he ac-
knowledged a lot of faults and prom
ised frankly to do better. The next
mail brought the man down from the
tree, and now he is a pretty good
friend of the system and has really
helped us in more ways than one to
improve the service. But it wasn't a
nice letter to read all the same
TITS all very we'll for people to say
that were thick-skinned and don't
care, but, as a matter of fact, no man
can remain quite happy under con-
slant daily flood of kicks, abuse, sar-
casm, objection and invective. 1t gets
to be very wearing after a while, and
when I go away on vacation the one
thing that I'm most glad to escape are
the unknown but extremely personal
enemies who are laying for me al
the time because they didn't get a cal
when they should have had one.
IT'S tough thing to know that
you've got a lot of vindictive and un-
forgiving foes-especially when they
can get square on you the way these
fol r,trrc- IL