Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1906-08-18
WHAT RAILROAD
DETECTIVES Do.
PUBLIC SELDOM HEARS OF THE
DEEDS PERFORMED BY THE
sLEuTHs OF SYSTEMS
They Are Fighting the Confidence Men
and Breaking Up the White Slave
Trade-What One Man Says-other
Railroad Notes.

One who keeps in touch with the
daily routine of the happenings in
railroad circles very seldom hears
what is going on concerning the work
of the railroad detectives. A great
many stories are written of the deeds
performed by the man at the throttle,
the brave f1agnan at crowded cross
ings and other employees OF railroad
systems. But it is seldom ones atten-
ton is called to the railroad detec-
tive" the man who is hired to keep the
moral order on passenger trains up to
the standard and run down bad men
who worry railroad officials in the OPP
GRAFTON of trains by acts of lawlessness
and other offences.
There are detectives and detectives.
miring audiences who they are and
what they are doing, what they have
done and what they propose to do, and
there are others who stick very close
to business, and who are never known
as officers except when it becomes alb
solutely necessary to show their au-
thority. A railroad man who knows
whereof he speaks, has the following
to say with reference to the right kind
of railroad detectives:
One of the Tasks.
zone Of the tasks undertaken by the
secret service of the railroads for the
protection of the travelling public is the
uprooting of the professional .con men
from the lines This is a job of con-
siderable magnitude Some of the
most plausible confidence men in the
business make it their practice to pick
up their victims on the trains.
Tn order to get these fellows 1t is
necessary for the secret service
agents to become acquainted with the
oily ones and find out all about their
schemes, posing as fall guys. as the
phrase runs. Then they have to inves-
tigate the con mems schemes, even
when they know perfectly well that
the schemes are crooked, so as to
make absolutely sure that they are not
making any mistakes.
when they have thus run the
schemes Of the con men down, the
same sort of treatment virtually is
meted out to the oils as is handed
the card swindlers. They are chased
from the roads by drastic hotfoot
, methods that can only be applied tc
people who are operating without the
pale of the law and who are therefore
; practically powerless to kick about the
breaking up of their business
"As a sort of side line the secret
service men of the railroads are In
position to protect guileless girls anc
women, travelling, from the wiles ant
| schemes of hounds who follow the rail
roads in pursuit of victims.
Time Increased.
The following is clipping from thu
< Daily Republican-Registe at Gales
. burg, which says:
3 "The men employed in the shops
according to notice posted yesterday
got started today on nine hours for tn
: first time in number of months.
: came as surprise to the large numbe
o of men employed in the machine, ca
and other shops and they were great
e pleased For two or three weeks, the
# have been working eight hours da!
9 Prior to that for long time they ha
: been working but forty hours a Weef
Thus they now have fifty-four hours
= week and this, means correspondent
increase of their wages. 1t signit1e
t at least third more wages than tn
r men were receiving a few weeks ag'
This advance is though to be due
e the recent marked increase in bushes
9 and the demand for repairs on equl
= ment