After Hours, Railway Mean Checking For Dropped Coins

New York, 1893

Nickel Hunters

Anyone who chances to take a stroll just before sunrise along the line of any of the surface railways in New York, will be sure to see from two to a dozen men walking near the tracks with hands in pockets and heads bent down. He may also observe that the conductors and drivers on the infrequent horse cars of that early hour also have their eyes turned earthward. They are all hunting for money.

During the night, and particularly when the after theater homeward rush is on, the conductors are very busy collecting fares and making change by the dim light of the car lamps. In the process both they and the passengers allow more or less small coin to slip through their fingers, and it is for the dimes and nickels that have rolled to the pavement that search is made at dawn. The change that falls beneath the floor slats of the closed cars belongs to the cleaners at the stables.