Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-09-06
AN ABUSED N A M
soLoRED SLEEPING CAR PORTER
= WEARS CHEERFUL FACE
FOR small SALARY,
voes Much Work Outside Of Regular
Duties OF Keeping Car cIean-Tips
Are Usually Small and He Earns All
He Gets From That Source.

3 The colored sleeping car porter is
g. padly slandered individual who, in
fplte OF the sorrows Of life generally
manages to preserve a cheerful coun-
tenance. 1t isn't every one who could
stay up half the night listening to the
demands and walls of half car full of
old women and equally cranky men,
catch an hours sleep, spend four
hours SHINING up a cart load of shoes,
hustle into white linen and, brush in
hand, stand by with the countenance
of a seraph while the man for whom
he has done the most work hands out
five cent tip.
4 FIve-cent Tip.
The ive-cent tip incident actually
appened.
vt occurred only few nights ago
on sleeping car between St. Paul and
Chicago. The munifcence of the gen.
tleman dazed the porter. He stood
for moment with the coin in the
palm of his hand and then remarked
in q casual sort of way:
Dunno whetheh All bettah keep
this we're money or give it back. Dis
man pears to need his money pretty
bad
The porter brushed the clothes of
twenty-five people by actual count
He received one tip of dollar, to
which he responded with a smile
worth S. at least half-dozen ten.
cent tips and few that were proba.
bly, quarters. AS careful an estimate
as could be made showed that his tips
amounted to perhaps $3.50 or So.
!. Has No Snap.
He had been all night on the road,
had shined every pair Of shoes on the
car, had wiped the dust from q dozen
OF season to make his passengers COM
4 hours sleep.
remarked "He probably makes $40
every trip in tips
He didn't make anything out of that
man. He left the car without remem.
bering the colored gentleman at ALL
Honest Porters.
And another thing.
A valuable Jewel was lost on the car
that night The owner wept salt tears
and spent twenty-four thoroughly un-
comfortable hours mourning over the
Moss. The porter found the Jewel,
turned 1t in at the company Offices
and did his best to see that it got
back to the owner. She received 1t
with great ioy II was worth all the
tips from twenty trips and could east
ly have been sold at good price.
The porter preferred to be honest,
There ia periodically an outcry
against the custom of tipping sleeping
Mar porters.
Someone ought to rise I'm and com.
hat the anti-tin adherents The sieen.
ing car porter renders value for every
dollar in tips he receives. On the
standard lines the porters are almost
always men who are anxious TO nlease.
!. willing to work for nothing to satisfy
Ifhe patrnns If tho road and watchfml
70 provloe llt'ie comforts even When
ths. ~ n a,,,stn Naa a.+an Than .oua 80
oIsn or,,stu nosso,a Nv I'D 800 80
nc Hha 80 oi peS'o 1870, nu 9 Iinoa p1 ~
ba v WV +r,,+tf,,I VI nnnaaoh an us 80. ~
pe.rast ,;,,itn - d dpmn oas 'r hoor;st
pas "nu a sa n,hn .s,.,. A.. ..
h.sn;t p%th,nm WY ~ . a. s .me p sts
orn,,nd 49, ~, W w .+bs ,,.ht ~
stav un n;nht ms ny up ou nd In1 .tnt, W. -
bsnra an : D1sn. VI wv anu "''en "n"'
+
Multifarious Duties.
After the car "a made I'm tha norter
has the shoes If his nassanoera "a