Flashed Wife's Pass for Girl Companion

1920

Brakeman and "Other Woman" Fined $300 for Fraud

DES MOINES, Iowa — C. G. Graham, special inspector for the Rock Island road, returned from Ottumwa, where he ran down a pair using a railroad pass fraudulently. He has prosecuted several of these cases and has many others to investigate.

In the Ottumwa case a brakeman at Eldon named Vandevere and a girl from Fairfield named Linn were fined $300 each by Judge Wade for using the pass of the wife of Vandevere for Miss Linn.

The girl was introduced to conductors as his wife by Vandevere, who is a former service man and has a wife and child at Eldon.

Vandevere denied entertaining more than friendship for the girl, and she testified she was living on the savings she had made when employed in a store. The judge gave them permission to pay the fine $50 a month.


Masked Gang Raids Liquor Warehouse

LEXINGTON, Kentucky — Seven men, masked with handkerchiefs, raided the old Tarr distillery warehouse here and, at the point of revolvers, forced two guards to unlock the warehouse. The gang stole ninety-four cases of whisky seized last January at Versailles, Kentucky.

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.

Tales of Two Nickels and a Five-Dollar Gold Piece

1903

TALES OF TWO NICKELS

Singular Things That Happened to Street Car Travelers.

It was in a Boston street car. When the car stopped at a crossing, a lady got up and went to the door. As she rose there was the chink of a coin on the floor, but before it occurred to any one to stop her, she was out of the car and across the street. Two ladies, who had sat next to her looked with anxious indifference on the floor. One of them leaned slightly forward, but said nothing. Just as the conductor was reaching for the bell-rope a young man spied the coin, and dashed out of the car. He caught the lady who had left the car, handed her the coin, ran back, caught the step of the car as the motors began to sing in crescendo, and sat down breathless. One of the two ladies opposite him leaned forward and said coldly, "Young man, what did you do with the nickel I dropped?" The passengers tittered. An old man at the other end of the car turned to his neighbor, "That reminds me," he said, "of something that happened to my wife years ago.

"It was before the days of conductors, when we used to drop nickels into a slot, and they ran down a groove to the box behind the driver.

"My wife had started out with a little change and one of those troublesome five-dollar gold pieces which used to be more commonly in circulation than they are now. Her eyes were not good, and so she was nervous about her gold piece, and had it on her mind all the way downtown.

"When she took a car for home, she met a friend, and grew interested in conversation with her. She put her coin in the slot absentmindedly. The driver turned as it struck the box. You remember the coin fell into a glass compartment first, and then the driver pushed a lever which sent it into the strong box below.

"As my wife heard the click of the lever, she thought of her five-dollar gold piece. She looked in her purse. Sure enough it was gone. She went forward and spoke to the driver. He said he hadn't looked very carefully, but he thought there were only three nickels in the glass receptacle when he pushed the lever.

"My wife insisted. The driver said if she would ride to the end of the line, the cashier at the station would open the box. This meant a journey of two miles beyond our street, and my wife was in a hurry.

"An old gentleman who sat by the door said he was going to the end of the line, and offered to give her $4.95, and get the gold piece at the station. My wife thanked him and took the money. When she got home she found the $5 gold piece in the lining of her purse.

"Next day I went to the station. The cashier said an old gentleman had made him open the box. There was no gold piece. The old gentleman had left in a rage, refusing to give his name. He said he had been swindled, and did not want to be known for a fool.

"We advertised in the papers, but we never heard from him. — Youth's Companion.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 4, 1903, page 3.