The Industry of Cheating the Line
A look at the cat-and-mouse game between railroad conductors, ticket scalpers, and the detectives hired to catch them.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Some railroads commence by swindling the public; then the officers and managers swell their private bank accounts from the company's earnings; finally the conductors and other employees 'knock down.' Not infrequently the citizen, with a conscience as attenuated as his real or supposed grievance is exaggerated, satisfies poetic justice by getting a verdict for large-sized damages for a small-sized injury to person or property. The O. R. & N. and Northern Pacific systems employ their spotters through Thiel’s detective agency, and the frequent change of conductors is an indication that the spotters are actively engaged. The old story is told of an Erie conductor whose train had been tested, and whose cash was found wanting. When confronted, he admitted to his lifestyle of silks, diamonds, and trotters, noting that on his salary, he had been very economical to do all this. He concluded: 'You discharge me and put on a new man and he’ll have to do the same thing.'
“It used to be taken for granted a conductor would steal, and so long as he was good enough to turn in a respectable percentage of his cash fares the practice was winked at.”
This piece exposes the systemic corruption inherent in 19th-century railroad monopolies. It echoes modern concerns regarding corporate internal auditing and the 'shrinkage' common in supply chain and transport labor dynamics.
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