The Iuka vidette. (Iuka, Miss.) 1894-1912, 1904-03-03
Brokers Close
icket Shops.
Railway Ticket Protective Bureau
Wins Victory IN Atlnata.

man q Moore two TICKET brokerage
firms which have for many years
done business in Atlanta, closed
their offices yesterday and retired
permanently from the ticket brok-
erage business, and there are now
no ticket brokers in Atlanta.
The closing of these offices is
the result of skilful work done by
the Railway Ticket Protective Bu-
reau.
The depredations of the ticket
brokers upon the revenues of the
of the railroads in the United
States and the extent to which the
influence of certains scalpers had
permeated the offices of the rail
roads, so that clerks land others
having access to tickets could find
ready market for stolen tickets,
had grown to such an extent that
it became absolutely necessary for
the railroads, for the protection of
their own revenue and the morals
of their employees, to take active
measures.
1t was while the railroads we're
looking about for ways and means
that Mr.. Pinkerton suggested the
organization of the Railway Tick
ct Protective Bureau. The results
of the work of this bureau have
been eminent1y satisfactory, and
here in Atlanta the work of the
bureau has resulted in closing up
both offices which the railroads
claim have been troubling them.
The bureau had accumulated a
very considerable amount of other
evidence which it was about to
submit to the courts, when on the
14th day of January J. P. Billups,
General Passenger Agent of the
Atlanta & West Point Railroad,
reported to Joseph Richardson, the
Atlanta representative of the bu-
reau, that he had just discovered
that forty mileage tickets, repre-
senting 40, 900 miles of transpor-
tation, had been stolen from his
ticket department. Mr.. Richard
son Immediately telegraphed the
headquarters of the bureau in Chi
cago, and on the 10th one Of Pink
erton's expert operatives arrived
in Atlanta. This operative and
his assistants traced some of these
tickets into and other tickets out
of Severance & Weinfcld S office.
On January 20, by virtue of
search-warrants, the officers made
thorough search of both of the
ticket brokers' Offices, with the re-
suit that night Sam M McClurkan
a clerk in the auditors office
of the West Point route, was ar
rested on the charge of larceny,
and in default of boad was COM
mitted to the city jail ,swhere he
stayed until Saturday, January 80,
when his bond was made. He i'm
plicated a negro, Will Edwards,
who was found by the Pinkerton
people in St. Louis and brought to
Atlanta. AT his preliminary trial
before Justice of the Peace Or
mond he pleaded guilty, as Nc
Clurkan had previously done, and
il is now understood that Weinfeld
and Stephens will plead guilty
when their cases are called in the
Superior Court.
thus far the protective bureau
has confined its prosecution to The
brokers themselves but it IS un
derstood that their campaign will
in future include passengers VINO
travel on scalpers' tickets As II Is
impossible, it is claimed, for -hem
to use tickets obtained from the
scalpers' offices unless they com
nit the crime known to the law
as false impersonation, which is
felony and a penitentiary offense
Atlanta Copstitution, Feb. 10
1904.