The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-15
Uncle Sam SwindIed Out of
 Thousands Annually
TACTICS OF RAILROADS
Women Order Fancy China Sent Out for Inspection, Use 1t at Recep- tion and Send 1t Back
 Next Morning.
BY FREDERIC J. HAskIN.

l preacher, long on the philosophy Of
 the street, but somewhat short on spirit
 ual ethics, once advised his congregation
 after this fashion: Brethren, if you are ] going to steal, steal something worth while. Do not take little things; for it l has come to pass that If you steal $10 they will send you to jail, and if you steal
 SlOO00 they will send you to Congress" "
 There was something of hyperbole In this
 statement, but after all il does express i a condition that prevails to q greater or
 less extent in this country. man may
 steal railroad by pulling financial wires
 and still be d Wall street magnate in good standing, while on the other hand another
 man may steal the brass from one lone l car on that same road and go to jail. Perhaps the worst of the petty srafters l are the big railroads. State laws fix
 maximum passenger rates, but the rail roads organize a terminal company or a
 bridge company, and these levy an extra
 rate on passengers using them. A spe- ] cifie instance is the case on the New
 York Central from New York to Albany. The law says that the rate shall be 2 i cents a mile. It is 146 miles from the i Grand Central station to Albany. At 2 ] cents mile the rate would be 2.92. As i It is, the rate is $310. Officials of the l railroad formed themselves into a bridge l company and brdged the Hudson at Al bany. They charge toll for passengers
 and the New York Central collects it. It
 would take a strong microscope to the
 line of demarcation between the owner ship of the New York Central and the
 bridge company, yet by this little legal l subterfuge the railroad is able to get |
 petty graft of Is cents out of every pas
 senger who crosses that bridge.s
 The proposition was seriously advanced i of charging,25 cents per passenger for us- i ing the new Washington Union station, i but the protest was so loud and so long
 that the matter has been postponed in-
 definitely" prominent railroad official ! recently remarked that the people will 1 willingly pay millions of dollars to the railroads in an open and above-b board
 way, but will raise a howl against petty 1 graft of thousands. He further said that two o-thirds of the adverse sentiment to- wards railroads today is due to the petty grating that they do.
 Petty graft is committed by all classes
 of people from the fellow who deliberately slits his trouser legs. then goes from
 house to house begging old clothes, which he afterwards sells to secondhand deal- CTS. up to senators and representatives who attempt to vote themselves an extra allowance of mileage between two terms the one of which begins at the moment
 
 known to pay $4 day for hotel bills and charge Uncle Sam s10. This was one of
 the charges against Judge Swayne in the
 Impeachment proceedings against him.
 It is estmated that there are 10000 men and women in New York who use their
 employers stamps for postage. This sort of graft is probably the most frequent and is a companion of the hotel statl,1- cry graft. One hotel pays out annually more than $5000 for paper and envelopes,
 more than half of which Is used by peo- pie who are never guests of the hotel.
 This Is a line of graft that the hotels as
 rule do not seriously object to. It is
 not 8 bad advertisement and probably
 pays for itself in the end.
 Many a man of wealth has had large tailor bills because of colusion between ! his valet and his tailor. The tailor enters into an agreement with the valet to pay him a certain percentage on the clothes ordered by his master. He then instructs the valet how to mako the clothes grow
 shabby in short order, the while appear
 ing to take the best of care of them. The
 result is an early order for d new suit and a rake-off for the valet. In a New York court nos long ago a valet testified that tailor had given him $50 year to make his employers clothes become threadbare more rapidly than they would by the ordinary wear on them. He testi- fled that the tailor had given him a rough
 wooden instrument with instructions to vigorously rub the trousers with 1t at che
 knee and the coats at the elbows every time he put the clothes away. Both
 parties proited by the transaction until the man accidentally discovered the
 treachery of his valet.
 Janitors in apartment houses usually
 make no little spending money by the graft whichsthey get from the renters family moves into apartment and is promptly informed by the janitor that he looks after the milk and ice. 'I have an excellent milkman, and everyone in the
 house likes him." says the janitor "Of course. you understand that I cannot dis l tinguish milk bottles very we'll and it is no end of trouble to look after different
 milkmen." The renter soon finds out if
 he sticks to his old dealer, that the jan l itor makes 1t pretty hard for him to get his milk Before long he gets it from the millman who was recommended by the janitor The janitor makes few dollars month graft out of the milk
 supply as much from the ice which comes into the house and probably as
 much more out of the grocerymen wn1 supply the renters.
 But the graft of the janitor is only a | drop in a bucket compared with that
 of the stewards of many clubs. The ! wine merchant must pay him a per
 centage, the butcher must yield tribute, in short everything that comes into the club
 via the steward route must afford him
 rake off. This accounts for the fact l that many of them soon get to be hotel 1 proprietors on their own account. Not i long ago in western city the manage. i ment of a club found that it's steward | had been buying second grade beef for years and charging it up to the club as l first-class It was necessary for the l butcher to play his part in the game or l lose the trade, and he did not choose the l latter expedient.
 Despite the vigilance of the federal au-
 thorities, thousands of dollars worth of
 government property Is taken annually l by employees. In those branches of the government service where stationery and l other supplies are furnished for official use, many employees take for their private i needs. pencils, rubber bands paper and l envelopes, paper clips. muscilage. ink and | the like. And In thousands of cases Uncle l Sam furnishes the childrens school sup l plies as well. Papa in the government | service even brings home enough rubber bands to make balls for the children. Ii | takes q dollars worth of rubber bands | to make some of the balls one sees on | the streets in Washington where govern
 ment employees live. On one block a news ! paper man counted 20 such balls in a 1 single evening.
 | for petty graft. The Senate and House l provide their members with free packing l boxes, made of the best woods and con. structed in the mosts ubstantial manner | These boxes cost B or 34 each, but there | ara faw IIuderstra ppers so ipciCpifica n