Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1885 — The Baggage-Check. [ARTICLE]

The Baggage-Check.

The American’s earliest experiences in England with his baggage provoke him. He wants to “check” it, and he cannot do it. At home, if he is going from New York to Boston, for instance, he buys a ticket at one of the numerous ticket offices which are scattered over the city, states what train he is going on, and is informed of the hour at which the baggage-wagon will call for his effects. When it does call, the messenger in charge of it gives him a little brass plate on which is a number, and the words “New York” and “Boston,” and attaches to his trunk, by means of a little leather strap, a duplicate"'of it. If the traveler drives directly to the depot, he buys his ticket, presents his baggage at the baggagecounter, and receives his brass check for it, the exhibition of his ticket being a warrant for the transfer of the trunks or parcels he has to the point to which he is going. If he is leaving an hotel, the porter who carries his trunk from his rooms will hand him the checks before he leaves the house. In any case he has no further concern with his traps until the end of his journey. Half an hour before he reaches Boston, an express agent—“parcels delivery clerk” they would call him in England —comes through the train, and, if thQ traveler wishes, takes the address at which he desires to have his things delivered, and taking his check, gives him a receipt on a small printed form. Within an hour or so everything is at the hotel or residence, if the traveler’s personal comfort requires that his efiects should accompany him at once from the train, he gives his chocks, when he alights in the station, to his hackman, or to the badged and labeled employe of the hotel ho means to visit. All of this is of course thorough y familiar to Americans; but English people know nothing of it, and have almost nothing in their system of travel which resembles it. To Americans the baggage-check is one of the greatest comforts of travel, and when they go abroad they miss it painfully. —Harper’s Magazine.