Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1877 — The Railway Detective Department. [ARTICLE]

The Railway Detective Department.

i> : ; —“ '■■■■<: “ Well, yes,” he said, “ we’ve a goodieh bit of?Work)to dd, of one kind or another. There are the waiting-room loiterers, who walk off with passengers’ luggage that doesn't-belong to-them; and sometimes our, own men go wrong, and we have to • run them in,’ or .get a ‘ creep’(a warrant) to searoh their houses. There’s one felWhOjf who used to be in the .company’s serried teho is' 1 wanted.’ And then there’s"tne~public who make claims for goods they,never lost, and sometimes ask for competfsation for accidents they never were in.”' * * . “And soyouhave a regular staff who do the detective .business-of your company I” ’; i - J ■ ' ; “Not a very ‘regular* staff,” he re‘‘Jer .thpy are., rather irregulaf jn their ways and words, and even appear Ahce, But they do their work all the.better for.that, you know.” Well, r'suppose' so," I answered. ■“And your ijaea find themselves in rather odd circuinstances some times V’’ “ Why, yes. We have had a man lie under a heap of ahaw three days and nights waiting to see who would come and letch away as roll iif cloth ‘ thad had jbeen hidden there] And we’vdi hkS .fthbthcr ride on a truck *1 Meted down nil tire way from London to Glasgow; and what with the shunting and shaking he rather a haddish time bf it before he nad done. In flirt, he suffered 1 sp much'; that we don’t often do that ndw; but we have had holes bored in the front and back of the covered goods trucks, .so that, mep Jnsjide cap gee forrard and aft, as the sailors say/ 4 The exLsteriCfe’tffjU “Tletltetivß department” in a railway tfofhpany nflty scein at first sight Wthnraltiated a strange and anomalous institutUm*- Yet,, when we remember that (lier'd are twenty, * thirty or forty thousand, servants, In the employment of a gteat railway; that uio' property intrusted $p care is of every con-> ceivable kind, of the value of incalculable millions of money; that a certain amount of polkg. supervision has to be exercised over,the millions of travelers, and that dveiy kind are practiced upon the companies by certain claeaeu'df ,tho public it is not to be wondered, at tliat the railways Ssirefd adetwerterl' - preoantton for Perhaps the chief d(faulty in the prevention of offenses of this kind arises from the false pode of hnnof, which exists among railway wpskm^n—« code, unhap. pily, found also elsewhere—which hinders them from actively repressing crimes which they would not themselves commit, dr evetu perhaps, countenance, but which they will not expose. “ You'll do that once to often, mate,” they will say to an offender; but beyond a mild remonstrance they will seldom or ever go, andshoulc 1 inquiries be made in regard to thefts which they must have

seen, their powers of observation will be found to have been singularly circumscribed, and their memories singhlarly treacherous. The culprits are thus, if not encouraged, yet connived at, and perhaps go on from Dad to worse, till they are ruined; their companions are suspected and compromised, and perhaps demoralised ; their employers are robbed, and no one is really benefited by acts which, if the honest workman would simply resolve at all costs should not be done, would not be done. Eveu when thieves have run all the hazards of their craft, and have securely possessed themselves of the property of others, they are seldom really enriched. Il is “ easy come, easy gb” with those who rob railways. They prey upon others ; but others prey upon them. Many an illustration might be given, but one will suffice. A certain railway porter had stolen a roll of ribbed trouser cloth, and fearing to keep it in his possession, resolved to dispose of it to a Jew tailor, who was known not to be unwilling to purchase such articles at a low figure. On entering the shop with his bundle he was cordially received by the clothier, who guessed the nature of his errand. “ And vaat can I do for you, my tear ?” the man of business tenderly inquired. “Well, you see—l’m a porter, and I’ve got a bit of cloth, you know, that I came lucky by” (a technical term). “Quite right, my tear; and ow mootch have you got? and ow mootch do you want for It?” “ Well, I don’t know,” replied the porter, “ you see I haven’t measured it, but I want the most I can get for it.” “ All right,” said the Jew, and then looking sideways through his shop wiqdow down the street, he suddenly exclaimed: “I say, man, koot, koot!” “What do you mean?" urged the impressed vender. “ Koot your stick,” continued tha Jew, “ through my back door, and run your hardest, the police are coming,” and he lifted up the movable lid of nis counter to facilitate the escape of the porter, who, leaving his ill-gotten wealth upon the counter, was not slow to avail himself of the advice given, and who felt considerable relief when, having passed through the kitchen and yard of the clothier, he found himself in another street, safe out of harm’s way, and no policeman in sight. Next day, nothing doubting, the porter called again, and alter passing and repassing to make sure the Jew was within, entered the shop. “ Good morning,” said the porter. “ Good morning, young man,” returned the Jew, with a little reserve of manner, “ Vaat can 1 do for you?” “Oh, I called about that bit of stuff, you know.” “ Bit of vaat?” inquired the Jew. “ The bit of cloth I left here yesterday —you remember?”——■ - “ Bit of cloth you left here yesterday ?" returned the man of business, with an air of what our French friends call ‘ pre-oo-cupation ’ and reserve, “ Vaat ao you mean, young man ?” “ Why, you know," continued the porter, with emphasis, “ I brought a bit of cloth yesterday to Bell you—a bit I’d come luckv by.” “ Vaat, to my haus—you brought it here ? Vy, I never see you before In ma life I Tell me vaat you mean ?”

So the maa repeated in emphatic words how that he had come the day before with a roll of cloth, how that he was going to sell it, and that they were talking about the price when they were interrupted by a policeman passing along the street, and “ you know,” he added, “ I left the cloth just here and went out the back way through your house and yard.” But so monstrous an imputation upon his reputation the Jew could no longer resist. “ Judith, my tear,” he called out at the top of his voice to his daughter. “Judith, my tear, fetch a policeman; here is a railway porter who has robbed his master, and wants to bring disgrace upon a respectable tradesman!” And Judith hied herself out into the street in apparently hot pursuit of a minister of justice. There was no time to be lost. The terrified railway servant performed a strategic movement down the street in the opposite direction, leaving behind him forever his ill-gotten spoils in the possession of the tender-hearted, and scrupulous Israelite. —London paper..