The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-12-22
John Lennon, Employee
>of Public Service,
Withheld Fares
----.--
WOMEN DETECTIVES AIDED
IN GETTING EVIDENCE
Company Had Sleuths Watching
Man on Pay-as=Y0u-E En-
ter Car.
JURY REACHES QUICK
VERDICT AFTER CHARGE
Traction Officials Are Resolved
10 Hunt Down Any Other
Dishonest Employees.

John Lennon, a Public Service Rail
way conductor on a pay-as-you-ente
trolley car, was today quickly convicted
of larceny by jury in the Court of
Quarter Sessions.
The loss to the company had been so
great and the prospect of further
mulcting the corporation so promising
that the traction officials made a deter
| mined effrt to convict Lennon, one of
the two men arrested at the time that
the company said that sufficient evil
denoe had been obtained to warrant
the arrest Of 100 employees.
Lemons case was selected as being
particularly illustrative of the vulnera-
bility of the company as concerns the
Withholding of fares by employees, and
no efforts were spared to produce all
possible evidence.
One of the most difficult classes of
| crime In which to obtain a conviction
Is that of street car conductor Who
withholds fares. In nearly every case
| the conductor Is able to testify that.
although the Hspotter'' or detective
| spoke truly when he said he failed to
ring up certain fares collected, he rang
up the fares on the next trip. or at the
! close of the day when he found he was
so many fares ahead.
Was Watched Constantly.
In this case, however, the company
had watched Lennon constantly all day
and by series of Operators" or
Spoilers" both men and women, and
their combined and cumulative evidence
! convicted him.
Attorneys for the company showed
that Lennon had devised a clever scheme
for defrauding the company. Some of
| the fares of which he was convicted OF
withholding he pocketed by making
change for passenger and pretending
to drop the necessary nickel in the box.
Instead he withheld the fare, accord
ing to the evidence. Other fares were
withheld in a manipulation of transfer
slips, and others through the habit of
many passengers. particularly women,
to hand the conductor the exact fare,
instead of depositing 1t in the h",
When investigation showed that the
company was losing so much money
that vigorous prosecutions would have
to be made, Lennon and John H. Ford,
another conductor, were arrested.
Ford's trial will be held on January 16.
Saw box Cheated.
In court at the trial OF Lennon, which
proceeded all of yesterday and until
noon today, the Public Service Rail
way had on exhibition one of the boxes
in which the fares are supposed to be
dropped and other exhibits.
Among the witnesses We're seven pri-
vate detectives. men and women. who
testified that they saw Lennon hold out
and fail to register $7.65 in fares.
In charging the jury Judge Davis
said that the case was of vastly greater
Importance than apepared on the sur
face, because of the large number of
conductors employed by the company
and because of the money they handled
for their employers He urged the jury
to weigh the evidence well before de-
Gliding OH a verdict, that the interests
of the people were at stake as well as
those of the company and the defend
ant, that the fares paid by. the public
were withheld from the company,
thereby preventing the company from
providing the service which the with
held funds might warrant.