The San Francisco call., 1904-03-17

gauge route was a competitor Of the
Southern Pacific in the same territory
and when Senator Fair sold his mold
ings to the Southern Pacific the rate
was not changed. From San Francisco
or Oakland to WatsonviIle or Pajaro,
notwithstanding that the distance is
shorter. the rate is also 81 80. ConSe-
uuently many persons. encouraged Dy
tho men engaged in the traffic of rail-
road tickets, when desiring to go from
this city to Watsonville, buy ticket
TO Santa Cruz for the same price ana
ask the conductor to give them stop
over at Pajaro or Watsonville. Inc
latter being a changing point for con-
ductors. the backs of the tickets are not
marked and readily find their way into
the hands of the brokers there, VINO. IL
is claimed, have boldly marked on the
backs of the tickets the name OF some
station nearer this end of the line and
forged the name of the conductor under
the date. Then the ticket is sent back
10 the point designated by the fraadu-
lent memorandum and resold Tor santa
Cruz or some point near there, at
cut rate.
INVESTIGATION FOLLOWS.
Five months ago Chief Train Agent
Lund got an inkling of the fraudulent
manner in which the company's tickets
were being handled and a thorough in
vestigation all along the line from Port
land to Ell Paso resulted in the dis
coyery that the fraud was in common
practice and thousands of dollars were
being lost by the company as a result
Some weeks ago the passenger depart
ment prepared new form OF caro-
ticket with a view toward stopping the
scalping. The ticket consists Of two
parts, a passage coupon and an 1den-
tifcation check, the former having
colored face and the latter being in
white. The check portion of the ticket
is properly lined, so that the conductor
NAV write in the name of any station
at which a traveller desires a stopover
and opposite his writing the conductor,
after carefully folding the two coupons
together. leaves the impression Of his
punch opposite the name of the station
inscribed by him on the stopover check
By this method any effort to success
fully manipulate the ticket for further
Transportation over the portion of the
route that has already been traversed
is prevented.
YOUNG HAWKINS CONFESSES.
few days ago the company placed
a number of these tickets on sale as
an experiment, and it is claimed that
Johnson of watsonville, finding that
one of the tickets had been improperly
wrote in the station number
of San Jose and disposed of the ticket
to the son of Justice of the Peace Haw-
kins. The ticket was taken away from
the boy on the train and the youngster
then made, a confession duplicating
Johnson. whose arrest followed yester-
day.
1--WE have found" saic Chief Train
Agent Lund yesterday, dozens Of
places along the company's lines in this
state where men have been making
regular business of mulcring the COM
pany of thousands of dollars by the
nanipulation of tickets on which the
original holders had secured stopover
privileges. Pawnshops at Sacramento,
stockton. Fresno and Bakersfield, a
cigar stand at Sacramento, a drugstore
at Bakersfield, a saloon at Fresno and
several cigar stores and hotel clerks in
Los Angeles and San Jose were dis
covered to be handling these tickets.
The company devoted several months
to getting evidence and was positive of
its position before it decided on what
action to take"
1t was learned yesterday that all
these cases are now in the hands of the
attorneys of the company and that
many arrests are to follow the prosecu-
ton of Johnson.