The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-27

ItCaHy. over tue tdltTOAu CoupdulcS oh the United States are congratulating themselves on the extent to which they have succeeded in diminishing the scalping evil. A large exposition of this character is ordinarily gold mine for the ticket scalper. but in this in- stance the companies were beforehand
 with him. Realizing the fact that if their normal business for a year was not to be swamped by excursion tickets which had fallen into wrong hands. the railroads made 8 determined and successful. effort to see that the Worlds Fair excursino tickets carried passen- gers only to the Worlds Fair and back again. The railroad Protective Asso- citation which was formed a year ago was the agency through which this was accomplished. Ticket scalpers who made St. Louis their Mecca found the detectives of the Association on hand before them and though, of course. there was small amount of scalping, the practice was comparatively broken up-
 This has afforded considerable en- couragement to railroad men in their long and difticult fight against cut-rate tickets. The worst of it. they say, is that among the scalpers are men who by no means confine themselves to legal u1GduS dHQ IOBBSEX uOGS HOI WOAEY them. Through the Railroad Protec- tive Association several scaIpers of Boston and New York have been sent to prison and this, the companies be- lieve. will have considerable effect in persuading the public that an iron-cIad written agreement. even with corpor- ation. Is worthy of some respect
 Another protective measure which the railroad companies have adopted is the use of safety paper for their foreign tickets. that is for through tickets en- titIing the, holder to travel over con meeting lines as we'll as over those of the Issuing company. A local card ticket from New London to New Haven. for example, offers no attraction to the scalper, for one man can buy 1t as cheaply as another. On the other hand, a Worlds Fair excursion ticket from Providence to St. Louis Is a complicated affair and can be purchased at a cost considerably less than the total of local fares along the route between the two cities and back. If ft falls into the
 hands of a scaIper, that gentleman not infrequently attempts to doctor it for
 his own purposes, and the protection of tickets against him has become as
 necessary as the protection of bank checks.i The paper on which these through tickets are now printed bears a private water-mark difficult to coun- l terfeit, but its great advantage lies in | the fact that 1t is impervious to chem | icals employed to erase the names on | the various coupons. Any attempt to doctor this safety paper results in a l blotch which can hardly escape the most cursory inspection. The printers
 from whom this paper is ordered are
 under bond. Altogether it is a very
 eflcacious check on the activity of the
 scalper, especially when he reflects on l the career of several of his we'll | known colleagues now in jail.
 Ticket scalping is especially irritat- | ing to the companies for it is to large
 extent made possible by their giving i special rates in order to accommodate large numbers of people who desire to attend meetings of one sort of another While the general public is sometimes unable to see why a ticket is not q | ticket and why if John Smith Is en- | titled to ride from Boston to New York l for. let us say. SS.50, John Jones should
 have to pay $5, the railroad, which has permitted John Smith to travel for less
 money than he would ordinarily pay l in order that he might be able to attend
 some meeting in which he is very much | interested is, on the other hand, quite
 convinced that John Jones has not any
 right to take advantage of it. The
 regular fare Is $5: and because the il company is willing, under special cir | cumstances, to accommodate a part of
 the public it Is no reason. railroad men
 think, why 1t should be imposed upon for the rest of the year.
 Were the railroad companies of the 1 United States to content themselves
 with simply selling day by day through
 the year tickets over their own lines
 tthe full legal fare. making no effort to aid the through traveller or to handle exceptional crowds, there would be no
 possibility of anybody paying anything
 but the full fare. It is only the effort
 to accommodate the travelling public
 which permits ticket scalping.
 In these days of much and long trav-
 cling railroad companies have been
 compelled to make arrangements for passengers who wish to travel from their territory over other lines. To do
 this requires an elaborate system of
 tickets and bookkeeping, the value of which to him the passenger would
 quickly realize were he obliged to buy
 a new ticket whenever he left the lines
 of one company and travelled over those
 of a new one. Some 2,500 different
 kinds of tickets. for example, are kept In stock by the general passenger agent 4 of the New York, New Haven and Hart ford Railroad. This number does not
 include what is known as the card local
 ticket, that Is, the little piece of paste board which entities 8 passenger to ride
 from one station on the New Haven
 Road to another. The number of tick cts of this kind is almost incalculable, 1 for tickets from every station to every
 other station on the road between
 which there is likely to be any con
 siderable amount of travel, are printed
 in large numbers.
 | The tickets flor the whole line are
 ordered by the general ticket agent. The local ticket agents are supplied