Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-11-26
WESTERN TRAIN BUTCHERS
GRAFT GAMES WORKED BY
RAILROAD PEDDLERS.
Fake Jewelry, Cheap Watches and
"Secret" Literature Palmed Off
on Passengers on the Side.

From the Chicago Inter Ocean
Did you ever enter a crowded train,
walk the length of the coaches without
being able to find a vacant seat, and then
sadly make your way to the smoker and
discover four or five seats you have been
so anxiously looking for piled high with
the stock in trade of the news agent ?
The news butcher ne is called in the
western vernacular, and the name Is
rather appropriate. The railroads have
an agreement with the news companies
that but two seats may be taken for the
use of the dispenser of peanuts and yell
low literature, but it is generally a case
of the passenger standing up and the
stock in trade being undisturbed.
Many of the eastern roads have dis
pensed with the newsboy on the ground
that he Is nuisance to many of the
travellers and an annoyance to nearly
every passenger. But nearly every train
in the west that carries a smoking car
and a day coach has a news agent as a
part of it's equipment. Up in the front
of the train, as a rule, near the back of
the smoking compartment, is the heap of
books, fruit and newspapers that he calls
his store The four seats are stacked
full of books of the type of Twenty
Years of Hustling'' and Through MS
souri, on Mule There are railroad
guides of uncertain issue, blackened ba-
nanas, glass locomotives filled with can
dies, and all the cheap and f1aShy trash
that can be crowded into two iron-bound
trunks and fruit hamper.
The men and boys who sell these goods
are characters recruited from 100 differ
ent occupations. Elderly men who have
failed in salesmanship or clerical posi-
tions, former jockeys, boys from the
farms, former street takers whose Origt-
nal graft was worn out, and once in a
while a brok n-down university man who
is trying to make stake. Some of them
f111 1fy,a for q
and have saved Their earnings, and are
looking forward to quitting the road and
living on their income. But most of them
are inveterate crap shooters and habitual
drinkers. Some of them are constantly
moving over the country, working out of
one city a few weeks and then striking
out for some other we'll remembered
haunt. One place is like another to them,
and the roads through the cypress trees
and hanging MOSES Of Louisiana are just
as familiar to them as the Kansas prai-
ries or the Ozark foothills.
Looking for Victims.
The sucker for whom they hunt is a
part of the fauna of no particular locality.
1t looks a little strange to see a big,
husky youth of somewhat uncertain age
parade up and down the aisle of the
coaches all day long with a basket of al
legged fruit on one arm and the other
piled full of the adventures of the late
Mrs. Guinness or the nerve-racking tale.
Thirty Years on the Plains AS he
passes and repaSses you uncOnSciouSly
fall to wondering how such man lives.
You can hardly persuade yourself that he
is a possible breadwinner at such an &C.
cupation But any frequenter of the
places where these men are fond of loaf
ing or any hanger-On around the offices of
the big railroad news companies in ST.
Louis can point out half dozen of the
old rl,0 ho RIM iv,o Mt Of
Louis since before the time of the Union
station, and who not only own their own
homes. but have acquired considerable
property in the way of real estate and
first mortgages.
When you discover that their work is
paid for on the basis of 20 per cent COM
mission on the amount sold, and the
amount sold on a round trip of four days
is about $50, it is hard to see where the
houses and lots came from. And yet the
successful news butch" will clean up
about IS a day for himself on the average.
and 1t doesn't all come from the profits
IN desiccated peanuts and saffron-tnted
literature. For the news agent must be
a past master of the gentle art of graft
ing. In various prohibition states he fire.
ouently disposes of half-pint bottles Of the
fluid that cheers and makes gloriously
drunk.
Down in Oklahoma. when the recent
:ronclad cigarette law went into effect and
you couldn't buy wheat straw paper in
all Sooner land he peddled the ordi-
nary book of papers at 25 cents pack
The county authorities tried to check the
practice. but finally gave it up in disgust
But a game of this kind is looked upon as
being unworthy of the serious attention of
frst-class ''butch.'' He wants some
thing that will add more scope to his
abilities One of the oldest and most ed
Of rhe downright confidence amos nr~"
ticed by these blue-coated pirates is called
the 'hoop STALL From cheap jewHlry
firm he buys a box containing a dozen
cheaply plated rings. made up to resem-
BILE somewhat heavy and solid gold ar
ticle. They are set with imitation en-
eralds and rubies and have a convincing
and prosperous look about them.
Working the Game.
As he walks through the train the news