The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-26
BEATING STREET RAILWAYS NOT so SUCCESSFUL NOW Claims Department Copes Well With Dishonest Claims
 for Damages.

Greek joins Greek when the claim department of any of the large rail- road mpanies-particular the city transit companes-begins to pay mon- ey for injuries received, or purported to be received, by persons travelling or employed upon their lines. Into a bat tie royal comes the shrewdest sides of the railroad, the legal and claim de- partments and class of the legal fraternity as clever and as able as it frequently is interruptions and dishon- est. Not that all damage claims made against the transportation companies are fraudulent, by any means. But it has been shown repeatedly and beyond doubt that a large class of these claims are dishonest from. the outset, that good many persons throughout the country have made a profession of this sort of business, form of crime that until short time ago offered the rich est pecuniary results, with the least chance of detection, of any "big work. Within a very few years able detective work by some of the big eastern street railroad companies has placed quietus on some of these folk, and stone cells at the disposal of number of others of them.
 Two trolley cars collide in the middle of a downtown street in a busy city. As the first sequence to the collision come the police and the hospital calls. Upon the heels of the patrol wagons and the ambulances the reporters for the daily papers arrive. Shrewd folk, who are understudies for those who have made fake claims their profess sion and carried it to fine lengths, and who have been fortunate in being pas sengers in the wrecked cars, and more fortunate in escaping real injury, are developing wondrous aches and pains and giving their names to the reporters or the police as proofs for the future issue. The small fry lawyers ambulance chasers, they are called are early on the scene. They cultivate the friendship of the police reporters, and use that friendship to the best ad- vantage at such times as these. In case, though, they do not get to the scene of the smash in time there are the telephone and other devices that can be brought quickly into play. Little time is lost in advising the "vic- tim" of the opportunity of large re- turns that wait him if he place sig able claim against the transportation company without delay.
 The railroad company has not been asleep all this time. Motornan or con- ductor or Inspector has rushed to the nearest drug store telephone, and the superintendent of the road does not know of the accident before it's chief claim agent While the first of these men is busy getting tower wagons and wrecking crews to the scene the second 1 has routed out his cossacks like fire men for a four-alarm blaze. They are on the scene as soon as the "ambu- lance chasers,' ready and willing to settle all valid claims on the spot with out further ado IA clever lot of young men these, and capable of being worth much more than their salaries to the companies that employ them. But they need every bit of ability that they can summon to their aid for they are pitt ted against many an interruptions man or woman who stoops to this meanest form of graft. It is not alone the dishonest claimant who stands facing him, but the attorney who is that claimants colleague also has a club in hand for him. Some of the sharpestt lawyers find that they make their best living from this very class of cases. Sometimes they take their
 first training in the law offices of the railroads, so as to observe the methods of their future antagonists, Once they have working knowledge of this sort as a good part of their stock in trade they turn in cold blood upon their cor poration employer, and set out to har-
 ass and annoy him until the end of hls
 days-Edward Hungerford in Harper's 1 Weekly.