A Judas Exposed OR THE Spotter Nuisance. THE LIBRARY OF 7766: THE UNIVERSITY 24 COMMUNE. VINCULUM OF MINNESOTA. OMNIBUS. ARTIBUS NE CLASS 3855 BOOK W56 JUDAS EXPOSED 1 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE AN ANTI-SECRET BOOK DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF RAILROAD MEN Marley To Wheele In the offi BY SUNSHINE. PWORITY O BICE Entered according to•▲et of Congress, in the year 1889, by MARTIN P. WHEELER, of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. PUBLISHED BY UTILITY BOOK & NOVELTY CO., CHICAGO, ILL. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page Preface....……………………… Introduction……… Some Characteristic Traits of Spotters.. An Original Definition of the Word "Spotter" A Chief Detective's Autobiography (Author's). Detective Funerals A Birthday.. Spotters' Initiation Random Sparks. Zeal's System of Railway and Sleeping Car Service Zeal's System Red Tape and Officialism (Public Opinion,) Vox Populi for the Conductor. A Railroad Official's Disposition of a Case………. A Letter of Appreciation A Conductor's Wife's Letter of Appreciation. A Different Disposition of a Case by a Railroad Letter of Depreciation.. Application for Re-Instatement by his Mother-in-law A Scheme Street Railways and Cable Car Companies. Unsophisticated One Reason why Spotters are employed, by a Candid Railroad Official. Trouble at Mr. Zeal's Railroad Detective Office A Private Individual Writes to the Detective Agency People Indignant Against a Railroad Manager for Employing Chinese The Letter to a The Assault. The Brakeman's Compliments. A Conductor's Epistle A Section Foreman's Threat A Tip... War-Paint. A Section Laborer's Regards... A Railroad Manager on Guess-Work. A Spotter Drunk. A Railroad Official on his Mettle.. A Spotter on a Jamboree…. A Tracer-A Freight Agent's Story Conductors' Honesty.. Holidays, (A Railway Manager's Reverie) Sensation in a Sleeping Car The Polite News Agent. (Butcher), The Fortunate Section Laborer. Kisses on a Sleeping Car Acknowledgement of Guilt -- On the Train. The Railway Conductor's Vopation (Sunlight and Shadow). The Ambitious Spotter... The Incentive. How Mr. Zeal, the Proprietor of the Detective Agency Gains and Controls Gains and Controls the Patronage of the Railways of this Country.... What the Railroad Manager Expeets of the Detective Employer What the Detective Employer does not expect of the Railroad Manager. The Detective Employer and the Railroad Manager as Friends. Why that Railroad Official, who receives Detectives' Complaints, should not try the Case. (To preveut prejudice) Railway Employes found Legally Guiltless and Acquited. Rendering of Decisions by Railroad Managers. The Railroad Employes' Hopeless Disadvantages A Railroad Manager's Opinion about Punishments The Detective Agency's Overwheming Advantages. The Conscientious Detective - - - 10 12 Spotters... The Brotherhood of L. E. and the B. of L. F. harrassed by Detectives. ------ 1 1 1 1 1.4 ARKRABBEF2ZB6258828*******an 16 27 29 30 32 33 777 78 An Innocent Railroad Man's Missive to the Detective Agency The Detective Agency's Private Letter to a Railway Manager Letter of Ex-Conductor B. of the Northbound R'y Co. to the Detective Ag'y 95 A Railroad Employe to his Superintendent What Means This.. 80 84 87 89 90 90 92 94 94 95 95 96 96 97 98 100 100 101 101 102 102 102 105 106 108 108 111 113 114 116 117 118 119 120 120 123 125 136 139 141 **** 144 147 148 153 155 157 166 168 175. Mc Clurg | 50 M 1914 I A preface to this book has been written for several réasons. Somewhere the author has heard that a book rarely succeeds without one-it seems necessary therefore to have one. I have been repeatedly urged within the last few years to write such a book as this, being assured by my publishers that a work of this kind would have an extensive circulation, and by personal friends that it would be a read- able book. Dealing strictly with facts, without exaggera- tion, following a course of sober, truthful reasoning absolutely fair to the employer and employe, I would chal- lenge honest criticism to point out a single objectionable feature. Information is given without fear or favor because of its intrinsic value, in preference to graceful, sycophantic .style. PREFACE. → J The nature of the spotter-system or spotter-nuisance is so thoroughly inter-woven with the managements of all the railways that it would be impossible to do full justice to it without embracing a range of topics and an exactness of details that would extend the present volume far beyond. the limits we must necessarily allot to it. Upon perusal much will be found that is considered of great value to the railroad men of the country and to the reading public, the majority of whom are supposed to be men of intelligence, men of thought, possessing a tolerably fair acquaintance with what is going on in the world in the various branches of business. A large proportion of railroad men have passed through the sore trials and tribulations of the and that 187057 • 8 JUDAS EXPOSED, 7 spotter-system; they, from sad experience, are not entirely ignorant of the subject of which this volume treats. Others again have some accurate idea, from what they may have learned by rumor as to the nature of the business that detectives start out to perform. Yet those perfectly acquainted with the wants and characteristics of railroad men are cognizant of the fact that but a very small pro- portion have a fairly accurate idea of the ignominous manner in which the spotter-system is conducted. The information tendered in this volume is not sup- posed to be cordially received and cheerfully recommended by so-called "self-appointed guardians" and parasites of railroad men, who have only their own interest and welfare at heart; and are too mercenary to champion the cause of down-trodden justice. They, like Pharisees, will cry down any salutary measure to be adopted in this line upon which is set the signet of perfection, and it is to be left open to a further opportunity at a future time of furnishing a more minute record of achievements, and our task at present will be less ambitious. The information I would give is the result of long years of experience, actual observation and inquiry in the condi- tion of railway affairs and the workings of the spotter- system. B Another object of this book which makes it worthy of support and encouragement of railway employes is the endeavor to lift their service to higher levels and make it what it should be. It sets forth not the conclusions of the writer, but the true undisguised facts, and I have stated in general, if not in detail; all the evidence which is necessary for proof. I have given in these pages the true history of many enterprises and the numerous adventures that I have witnessed, and though some had to be omitted, and a por- OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 9 1 tion of my confessions may by some be considered injudi- cious, I prefer frankly to acknowledge the corn, wherever I have had a hand in plucking it. The characters in this work, with whom the reader will make acquaintance, have all been in the flesh, but few of them so far as I know have yet quitted it. The identity of some has been veiled by fictitious names-but that is out of regard for personal susceptibilities;-any one of those introduced would be able to recognize a faithful account of the events narrated. For the personal reasons mentioned I have also thought best to disguise certain localities under invented names; none of those substituted, however, are such as to impair in the least the completeness of the chronicle. I shall be fully rewarded by having performed my duty to humanity, that it may lead to more happiness and pros- perity, and one main object I have in yielding to the solic- itations of my friends will have been accomplished and a long-felt want supplied. "A wise physician skilled our wounds to heal, Is worth more than armies to the common weal.” f 10 JUDAS EXPOSED. INTRODUCTION. are. Few people really know what a detective is, and fewer still have any idea what the requirements of a detective Almost every person who is able to read has read more or less of detective stories, and have had their imag- ination strung to a fever heat by the thousand and one disguises adopted by the different detectives, and the num- ber of untold hair-breadth escapes and danger through which these fellows have gone. A poor deluded pub- lic. The bigger fools you try to make of a person, the more readily is he to believe you. Wherever you see a man, who claims to be a detective, sauntering along the street with a "dandy copper" step, a squint in his eye, his mouth puckered, or his hat drawn down on one side of his head, you may rate his detective ability very low. Some people get the idea into their head that a detective should show himself and when he secures evidence, should not be backward in presenting it personally to court. I wish to correct a popular error in this respect. A detective's business is to detect and nothing more. If he wants to become successful in his business, the first and most impor- tant point for him to learn is secrecy in all that it implies. He should never, under any circumstance, become known to those interested directly or indirectly in the case. His reports should be made in such a manner that none other than his immediate employer will be able to detect from whence these reports originate. Another important thing, OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 11 a detective should never under any pretense whatever, per- mit himself to be placed on the witness-stand, or permit himself to become entangled in such a manner as to run such risk. When once a detective becomes known to the public then his days of usefulness are over. Men who make crime a business never fear a detective who is known; their fear is always of those who never permit their identity to become known. A detective who knows his business will never make an arrest. This duty belongs to the sheriff, his deputies, the constable or the policeman-a detective's never. He will never be found in a court room in the capacity of a witness. Nor is there any need of him wear- ing a disguise. The idea of a detective assuming a disguise is sheer nonsense and originated in the imagination of some fiction writer or highly pointed drama, such things are unknown in the legitimate officer. The detective who pos- sesses the skill and shrewdness necessary to the success of his profession, can shadow a man for months or years without assuming any disguise whatever, and until a man is capable of doing this he will never reach a prominent place in his profession. 1 ( : 1 12 JUDAS EXPOSED, " f ¡ 1 SOME CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS OF SPOTTERS. There can hardly be any doubt that spotters inherit from their mothers a love of the night side of nature, not a love that begets melancholy, but an appetite that finds pleasure in the shadows as well as the lights, of life and imagination; with few exceptions they are members of large families with narrow means-and are of a poetic temperament; their lively fancy is vividly set forth by prying eyes, now dark and serious, now tender and senti- mental as occasions require. This is one of their principal traits acquired and inured by a habit of long, watchful observation. They have other peculiarities. From the mouth a fair estimate may be obtained of the individual's character as to determination or weak will-power, brute courage or timidity, chastity or licentiousness, generosity or selfishness, cruelty or kindness. It will be observed that this does not go so far, even with spotters, as to make a sus- pect flatly as a criminal or honest man; it simply suggests his tendencies. In seeking to determine whether a person is a spotter, or telling the truth, it depends a good deal upon the eyes; not, however, upon their general appear- ance, for the most evil-eyed person in the world may tell truth at times, and some of the best of men may prevari- OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 13 1 cate upon occasions of great temptations. It is rather the action of the eyes that tells the secret. Just try to place the person, whom you suspect, so that the light shines fully in his face. Then you can see the pupils, and if they waver and contract more than the light would call for, you may feel pretty confident that you are dealing with a spot- ter or prevaricator. It is practically impossible to control the pupil. One whose eyes do not waver, when he is spot- ting you, usually betrays himself by the very effort which gives to his face an appearance of over-confidence, and his assumption of innocent candor becomes a calm stare. How to proceed when convinced that the party is not telling the truth, in other words is a-spotting you, is another question, and one that will be discussed elsewhere in this book. DEAR SPOTTER: The conductor yearns to yank thee To his brawny breast and squeeze Thy palpitating gizzard Through thy vest. 14 JUDAS EXPOSED, } AN ORIGINAL DEFINITION OF THE WORD "SPOTTER." J Yesterday a lady, whom I had saved from drowning once, entered my office with the wild, hunted look of a tracked spotter, whose experience as a detective was not over a foot long. She was a blonde, and just after testing a conductor over the Richfield Railway, and after she had heaved a sigh as large as a box-car, thus began: "Before my train had fairly left the starting point, some passengers in the car I was checking cash-fares in, hissed, 'spotter,' evidently at me. What was meant, for I am greatly excited ?" "My good lady," I replied, "permit me to reeite an anecdote, told years ago by its hero, a clergyman, to better illustrate to you the meaning of that word: ઃઃ At a village school, not many miles from Hill, a boy was put into Webster's Grammar. Here he read, “A noun is the name of a thing, as horse, hair, justice." Now in his innocence he read it thus: "A noun is the name of a thing-as, horse-hair justice." "What then," said he ruminating deeply, "is a noun? But first I must find out what horse-hair justice is." Upon this he meditated for some days, but still he was as far as ever from the solution. Now, his father was a man of authority in those parts, and moreover, he was a OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 15 justice of the peace. Withal he was of respectable ances- try, and so there had descended to him a stately, high- backed settee, covered with horse-hair. One day, as the youth came from school, pondering upon the great gram- matical problem, he entered the front door of the house, and there he saw before him his father, officiating in his legal capacity, and seated upon the old horse-hair settee. "I have found it!" said the boy to himself greatly delighted--"my father is a horse-hair justice, and therefore a noun !" The boy had the man on his seat, you see, which made him a spotter." She had been a cheap newspaper wit before she under- took those God-sent errands, and as she caught onto the meaning of the word, did she greatly jubilate: "What echo of the public voice, 'spotter!' Terminate existence! Is my bump of locality so obstinate in presenting its out- lines to me? Different were my jumbles of conception to this name of which dawned no glimpse unto my blooming eye; no title shall me henceforth pass, ever so descriptive, without I ascertain the handle on it." Placing herself at the foot of the stairs, she said, attuning her voice to the occasion, "La-ar-tes, descend --thy lady waits!" and he came down from the roof where he had been spotting a bob-tail-jigger. 16 JUDAS EXPOSED, เ A CHIEF DETECTIVE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. (AUTHOR'S.) I hope the reader will not imagine that I am thinking too little of his amusement and too much of my own, if I stop a few moments to note the lively recollections I enter- tain of the joyousness of my early life, and not of mine only, but that of my playmates and companions. In looking back to those early days, the whole circle of the seasons seems to me almost like an unbroken morning of pleasure. I was, of course, subjected to the usual crosses inci- dent to my age, those painful and mysterious visitations sent upon children-the measles, mumps, whooping cough and the like; usually regarded as retributions for the false steps of our mother, Eve in the Garden; but they have almost passed from my memory. I well remember that my father's house was converted into a hospital, or as it was then called a "pest-house," where with some dozen other children I was inoculated for this disease, the scourge and terror of the world. The lane in which our house was situated was fenced up north and south so as to cut off all intercourse with the world around; a flag was raised and upon it were OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 17 inscribed the ominous words "Small-Pox." My uncle and aunt from New Lisbon arrived with their three children. Half a dozen of the neighborhood were gathered together, making, with our own children, somewhat over a dozen sub- jects for the experiment. When all was ready, like Noah and his family, we were shut in. Provisions were deposi- ted in a basket at a point agreed upon down the lane. Thus we were kept excluded till all got well. With children of deacons, ministers and farmers I attended school up to the age of fourteen. Then I studied stenography and languages. After that I became appren- ticed to a merchant, which trade was regarded as my mani- fest destiny. It may serve in some degree to throw light upon the manners and customs at New Lisbon at this period, if I give a few notes. The winter brought sleighing, skating and the usual round of indoor sports. In general, the inter- course of all classes was kindly and considerate, no one arrogating superiority, and yet no one refusing to acknowl- edge it where it existed. You would hardly have noticed that there was a higher and lower class. Such there were certainly; for there must always and everywhere be the strong and the weak, the wise and the foolish. But in our society it existed without being felt as a privilege to one which must give offence to another. There were varied household industries and occupations of the country people besides shop-keeping and farming. At this period of my recollection men of all classes were dressed plainer, in long broad-tail coats, with huge pockets; long waistcoats, breeches, and hats with low crowns and broad brims. • Card and checker playing, and dancing in fact, were of the chief amusements of the day. Tavern-haunting, 1 18 1 JUDAS EXPOSED. lounging around billiard-places especially in winter, when there was little to do during the inclement season, was common even with respectable people. Marriages were celebrated in the evening at the house of the bride with general gathering of the neighborhood with considerable eclat, when everybody was amused. These are of the pleas- antest remembrances of my childhood. Before I proceed let me note, in passing, a point of manners, then universal, but which has now nearly faded away in the country. When travelers met on the highway they saluted each other with a certain dignified courtesy. All children were regularly taught at school to "make their manners' to strangers; the boys to bow and the girls to courtesy. It was something different from the frank, familiar "How are you stranger?" of the far West; some- thing different from the "Bon jour serviteur" of the Alps. Our salute was more measured and formal; respect to age and authority being evidently an element of this homage, which was seduously taught to children, who had to attend school from morning to night, in all weathers, through every season of the year; school exercises were carried on with the energy and perseverance of a manufactory. As to rewards and punishments the system was this: Whoever missed, went down; so that perfection mounted to the top. Here was the beginning of the up and down of life; and all this in youth-is sowing seed which is repaid largely and readily to the hand of after-cultivation, however unskilful it may be. This is not so much because of the amount of knowledge available in after-life, which is thus obtained-though this is not to be despised-as it is that healthful, vigorous, manly habits and associations, physi- cal, moral and intellectual are thus established and developed. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 19 } ! ? W As mentioned, I was apprenticed to a merchant, a Mr. John Halstead, and was the only assistant in his office; my master, however, seldom leaving it during business hours. Had the capacity for trade been in me I might now have learned my business. I think I may say that I ful- filled my duty at least in form. I was regular in my hours, kept the books duly journalized and posted. I never con- sciously wronged arithmetic to the amount of a penny. I duly performed my task at the counter and went out on errands. Yet in all this I was a slave, my heart was not in my work. My mind was away; I dreamed of other things, I thought of other pursuits. And yet I scarcely knew all this. I had certainly no definite plan for the future. A thousand things floated before my imagination. Every book I read drew me into its own vortex. Poetry made me poetical; politics made me political; travels made me truant. I was restless for I was in a wrong position; yet I asked no advice, for I did not know that I needed it. My head and heart were a hive of thoughts and feelings without the regulating and sedative supremacy of a clear and controlling intelligence. I was then eighteen years of age. I had been suffi- ciently educated for my station. My parents had now removed from New Lisbon to West Lisbon, a distance of but a few miles from my present residence, so that I had easy and frequent communications with them. My uncle, C. R. Gill, then a senator of the United States, lived in an almost contiguous street, and while in the city, always treated me with the kindness and consideration which my relationship to him naturally dictated. In general then, my situation was eligible enough, and yet I was unhappy. The truth is I had now been able to sit in judgement upon myself to review my acquirements, to analyze my 虚 ​' 1 20 JUDAS EXPOSED, capacities, to estimate my character, to compare myself with others and see a little into the future. The decision was painful to my ambition. I had all along unconsciously cherished a vague idea of some sort of eminence, and this unhappily had nothing to do with selling goods or making money. I had lived in the midst of relations, friends and alliances, all of which had cultivated in me trains of thought alien to my present employment. My connections were respectable--some of them eminent, but none of them rich. All had acquired their positions without wealth, and I think it was rather their habit to speak of it as a very secondary affair. Brought up under such influences, how could I give up my heart to trade? It was clear, indeed, that I had missed my vocation. Full of this conviction I besought my parents to allow me to quit the store and attempt to make my way through college. Whether for good or ill I know not, but they decided against the change and certainly on substantial grounds. Their circumstances did not permit them to offer me any considerable aid, and without it it was impossible. So I left home. Farewell to home implies something yet more serious. In bidding adieu to the paternal roof we part with youth forever. We part with the springtide of life which strews every path with flowers, fills the air with poetry and the heart with rejoicing. We part with that genial spirit which endows familiar objects-brooks, lawns, play- grounds, hill-sides-with its own sweet illusions; we bid adieu to this and its fairy companionships; we relinquish and often with exultation, the tender care of parents, in order to take upon ourselves the responsibilities of inde- pendence. What seeming infatuation it is that renders us thus impatient of the guidance of those who gave us being, and makes us at the same time anxious to spread . } OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 21 our untried sails upon an untried sea to go upon a voyage which involves all the chances, evil as well as good, of existence! And yet it is not infatuation-it is instinct. We cannot always be young; we cannot always remain under the parental roof. The old birds push the young ones from the nest, and force them to a trial of their wings. It is the system of nature that impels us to go forth and try our fortunes, and it is a kind Providence after all which endues us with courage for the outset of our uncertain career. I was not long in discovering that my new vocation was very different from what I had expected, and very dif- ferent from my accustomed way of life. My habits had been active, my employment a good deal in the open air. I was accustomed to be frequently on horseback, and make excursions to customers in the neighboring towns. I had also enjoyed much personal liberty, which I failed not to use in rambling over the fields and forests. All this was now changed. My duties were clerk in a law office, and this office seemed now my prison. From morning to night I remained there; and as our business was not large, I had many hours on my hands with nothing to do but to con- sider the weariness of my situation. My brother-in-law was always present, and being a man of severe aspect and watchful eyes, I felt a sort of restraint, which for a time was agonizing. I could not stand this much longer and had, consequently, pretty sharp attacks of homesickness; a disease which, though not dangerous, is one of the most distressing to which suffering humanity is exposed. This state of misery continued for some months dur- ing which time I resolved various plans of escape from my confinement; such as stealing away at night, making my way to Portsmouth, getting on board of a sloop and mak- ! Y 22 JUDAS EXPOSED. ing my way to the West Indies. I believe that a small impulse would have set me upon some such mad expedition. By degrees, however, I became habituated to my present occupation, and as my situation was eligible in other respects I found myself ere long reconciled to it. The father and mother of my brother-in-law were aged people, living with him in the same house and as one family. They were persons of great amiability and excel- lence of character. My brother-in-law was a man of decided character and his portrait deserves of mention in these annals. He had graduated at Yale College, and had been qualified for the bar; but his health was feeble, and he had succeeded to the law-business his father had estab- lished for him. Being in easy circumstances he made no great efforts in business. Though as I have said, he was of stern aspect and his manners austere, he was very kindly disposed toward me. He had a friend in Mr. D. B. Dobson, General Mana- ger of the Argentine R. R. Co., with whom he was in friendly correspondence, and upon learning from him about a vacancy in the Construction Department for time-keeper, he recommended me, and I gratefully accepted. My work here was more to my liking, being seven hours on horseback during each day, and having office duties to perform evenings. After working about two years in this capacity I was promoted to confidential clerk of the General Manager. After performing six months these functions satisfac- torily to him, he appointed me right-of-way-and-claim-agent on his road, which position I held for over three years. After that I quit the road and drifted to Saint Lisbon, where I associated myself with Messrs Isaac Newton & Co., railway and corporation lawyers. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 23 t During fourteen years I remained with them and acquired some knowledge of railway affairs; and as I came in almost daily contact with railway officials and their employes of all grades, I got a thorough insight into the inner workings, the wheel within the wheel, of the Secret Service and Inspection as in vogue on all the American railways; and convinced without bias or prejudice that reform is sorely needed for the sake of right and justice, I have fully exposed the mysteries thereof to my impartial readers, not to assist dishonesty, but to see more justice done. At the time I am speaking of, say sixteen years ago, there seemed to be a sort of combination of newspaper reporters and the regular police force at Saint Lisbon, to write down Detective Agencies and Private Detectives, the "regulars" furnishing the inspiration, apparently, and the reporters doing the heavy work of writing. The gist of their trouble seemed to be, without much activity and less prowess on the side of Private Detective Agencies, there were no "bids" forthcoming from them. It was claimed they were never on the alert for criminals, but all pervading and meddling everywhere; the Private Detective Agencies giving teeth for claws in return, claiming all the merit, asserting that the "red-tapeism" of the "regular force" in the manipulation of criminals and their arrest were frequently interfered with and sadly tangled. The remedy seemed to be to hob-nob with reporters and furnish them with cock-and-bull stories of how they had squelched some unfortunate young detective who had invaded their sacred precincts and made himself obnoxious to their criticism. The reporters from the detective, for whom they assumed much sympathy, would go back to the Agency he represents and under whose auspices he works, } ai's Фридко гово 3 24 JUDAS EXPOSED, and vent their spleen against that as the real source of the trouble. Of course, said Detective Agencies having come in for their full share of denunciation and perhaps a little more than they could bear, at length went down and died. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 25 DETECTIVE FUNERALS. E'S AND 8'S DETECTIVE AGENCIES' FUNERALS. A GREAT GATHER- ING TO DO HONOR TO THE NOTED DETECTIVES. EULOGISTIC WORDS. The funeral of the late Messrs. E. and S. took place yesterday at the Second Shady Chapel. The large audito- rium was well filled. The caskets were preceeded up the aisle by the follow- ing honorary pall-bearers: Josephus Smiley, Brindle Dog, Knock-Down Colorow, Major Gall, Crazy Tail, Peter Bull, Billy Slippery, Peeled Nose Blizzard, David Dobbins, Bran Mash Johnson, Emperor Norton and Paul Pry, Bottle Nosed Bill and The Gunner from Galway. The actual pall-bearers were: Jagger Yabbacomb, India Rubber Sampson, Experience Pettibone, Deacon Griffin, Sore-Eyed Pollywag, Katooter Smike, Drag-out-Plant and Miser Sullivan, the Irish Jew. The Sleuth veterans attended in a body and were given seats at the immediate right of the caskets. Col. J. Lane, who in the early history of Navov rode the circuit with Joseph Smith, Bringham Young, Heber Kimball and other Latter-Day-Saints; and many others were present. The Rev. Dr. Raudenhyer spoke tenderly of his own few months of intimate acquaintance with the men whose 鲁 ​26 JUDAS EXPOSED. t tall and splendid presence was everywhere loved and hon- ored. The Doctor, in a few eloquent words, dwelt on Messrs. E's and S's early and lasting friendship with Messrs. Snooper, Tom Thumb, Eagle-eyed Buzzard and others. "One by one," he said, "these have passed away and can we doubt that this cluster of friends, immortal in the memory of a nation, have met on the other side of the Stynx?" After these impressive services, the bodies were taken to Sleuth cemetery. Peace be to their ashes! Amen! OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 24 7 A BIRTHDAY. The St. Louis Chief of Police McDonohue informs a corps of newspaper reporters that he has just made a great discovery-that a new Detective Agency had been opened in town and was already doing business in every portion of the Union, detecting and bringing to justice more culprits than the late Agencies had done in all their lifetime-is another fraud. Wonderful discovery, as well might he say, he had just discovered the sun, some bright day, and knows it to be a fraud, because he shines brighter and his rays afford more life and energy than the moon! Oh sage and puissant discoverer! What was Columbus the discov- erer of a new world to thee! Soon the reporters at Saint Louis made their respective papers mouthpieces of Chief McDonohue's proclamation that a gerius had burst upon the world; that Mr. Zeal, the founder and proprietor of said new Detective Agency, by his prowess, prudence and experience would frighten every evil-doer in the country, that already his members (spotters) were more prevalent than any other's, covering as they did every state and territory in the Union, as well as most of the provinces of British America, from Nova Scotia to Vancouver Island. Simultaneously, to the great advantage of Mr. Zeal's busi- ness, he gained the friendship of one Mr. Vicket, an official of a Sleeping Car Company, who had worked himself up from a pot-rustler at East Saint Louis and who, while 28 JUDAS EXPOSED. holding an influential position on a not very large salary, was a practical man; besides he was generous, and did not mind to join the chorus and sing the praises of Mr. Zeal, the founder of Zeal's Railway Inspection Service. Why should not he; it was simply natural. Their friendship ripened and has been an exchange of mutual satisfactions and considerations throughout, down to the present time. Mr. Zeal, of course, was given the patronage of the secret service work by the Sleeping Car Company, with other privileges of vast advantages to his business, through Mr. Vicket's influence. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 29 SPOTTERS' INITIATION. Their manner was so pensive, So sober was their air That I began to wonder What grief they had to bear. They were not dressed in mourning, But in the latest style, They wore a spottèr's costume But they did not wear a smile. They looked quite sleek and dainty; Their hands were neatly gloved; But, somehow they looked just as if They never had been loved. And so at last I asked them if They'd lost their next of kin. "Oh no!" they sighed; "it's only These pups we're breaking in." 1 80 JUDAS EXPOSED, RANDOM SPARKS. From the outset, as railway patronage came pouring into his new-founded detective agency, Mr. Zeal used all his endeavors with ingenuity how to silence complaints from those railway employes, to whom injury had evidently been done, and how to keep the fact from leaking out, that for the most part, as a matter of economy and lack of available funds at the start, he had enlisted in his Agency very young men with hardly any prospect of acquiring abil- ity and efficiency enough to do justice to the work laid out for them. Many are known that were hired for this Agency who were not conscientious, reliable persons, and though some of them were later on discharged, this was not done till a great deal of injury and vexation had been imposed upon railway employes by these unscrupulous spotters. The fact is, it is altogether too common to assume that the principal recruiting place for Mr. Zeal's Detective Agency were the saloons and low resorts of Saint Louis. Had it not been, and would it not be a thousand times better for the railway service if this Mr. Zeal had filled his ranks with educated, experienced and conscientious detec- tives, than to look only to the army of full-fledged bum- mers, without any qualification for the business? Mr. Zeal from the start made Railway Secret Service his particular specialty, and it will be further mentioned in another chap- at OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 31 ter how he gained the full patronage of all the railroads, and left no room for competition. Mr. Zeal, as we have seen, to start with, had two pow- erful helps, the C. of P. of Saint Louis, and Mr. Vicket, then already the rising power behind the throne of Palace Car Princes. These two were his stepping stones, so to say, to the patronage by other railway managers. These two were the source from which brilliancy was thrown upon his hitherto obscure name and existence. By and by Mr. Zeal contrived, what was never known before, a peculiar methodical system for his railway-spot- ters. He now soon found a profitable field of labor- besides giving his friends the reciprocal lifts-did well, and climbed up the Golden Stairs; for his detectives soon were to be found everywhere, doing the railway lines and water- courses, and it is a plain and unassuming crossroads-post- office which does not sport one or more of his sleuths to-day ever on the alert; and whose surveillance, frequently of innocent strangers, is more merciless than that of Hawk- shaw over Robert Brierly, the Ticket-of-Leave-Man, while the real culprit is in some safe retreat, far away! It is of much more frequent occurence, than is gene- rally supposed, that a good, honest person's name is attacked and dragged through the mire by unscrupulous spotters, who will write up labored reports of observations, trying to make a showing out of air, and they do not care, having never known the precious value of a good reputation themselves; believing that that kind of work will be appre- ciated by their employer. 32 JUDAS EXPOSED. ZEAL'S SYSTEM FOR RAILWAY, AND SLEEPING CAR SERVICE. The detective methods of past days and other countries would certainly never be competent to the work which is performed by the modern detective agency in this country. By far the most prominent and foremost of them all has become Zeal's Detective Agency with headquarters at Saint Louis which controls the patronage of nearly all sleeping car, railway and steamship companies of America. The fact that their devices employed, and the skill and aptitude of some of their detectives enables them continu- ously to rectify their course and conduct their operations to many victorious issues, testifies beyond a doubt of the ingenuity of Zeal's system, the only unique one in vogue on American railways. It is exposed below, verbatim et literatim in 150 sections with explanatory notes by the author. The careful reader will readily understand what has heretofore been kept so secret by this agency; the defects and inefficiencies and absolute fallacy of this system which, while doing some good one way, inflicts great injury another. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 33 ZEAL'S SYSTEM. OF SECRET SERVICE FOR RAILWAY, SLEEPING CAR, AND STEAM- SHIP COMPANIES IN 150 SECTIONS. WITH NOTES BY THE AUTHOR. NOTE: A detective when employed on railroad-train or special work by a Railway Company, is called an opera- tive; when he is employed on sleeping-car work he is named a special agent. One and the same party may be employed in both capacities at the same time. Section 1. Operatives will please read the Books of Rules and make themselves familiar with the contents. Ignorance will not be taken for an excuse. Section 2. The operative may be detailed for manual labor or hazardous service, such as breaking on freight trains, chopping wood, quelling riots, etc., etc., and any one refusing to discharge such duties, when away from any of our detective-offices at cities, will be considered as resigning from the service, and will not be furnished transportation home. --- * > 34 JUDAS EXPOSED, Section 3. All business correspondence (reports)must be addressed to Post Office Boxes. Section 4. Being satisfied that the interest of the service has suf- fered through social correspondence between operatives, letters of a purely social nature are prohibited. Section 5. Operatives engaged in testing railroads on which regu- lar servive (where there is no standing contract, and work only periodically) is not employed, must not mail letters to friends, except through their respective home-offices, and they must not be dated from the vicinity where they are at work. Section 6. Operatives must return by first mail all letters of instructions received from their offices. NOTE:--If the instructions are not crooked, why should they be returned? Section 7. The usefulness of an operative will depend largely upon his ability to keep his connection with the Service secret. Hence it is hoped that an employe will take every precaution to keep his business from being known, even to his most intimate friends and relatives. NOTE:-By this is simply meant that his usefulness depends upon his faculty of sneaking, lying and dissimi- lating even to his most intimate friends and relatives. Now, when he was young he was taught to shun evil and do good; when he grew old enough to read he found pas- sages in the Good Book which told him to walk in the ways OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 35 of righteousness and purity and turn from evil and evil companions and seek only paths of purity and honor. or words to that effect. By the detective agency, as a den of iniquity, he is taught to shun the paths of virtue and become contaminated; where everything that is pure and holy is derided, where his ear and mind is polluted by encouraging him to lie and dissimilate to his best of friends. If once turned from the path of virtue is it a wonder if he next seeks the experience to falsify in his reports? It must be all right; if it is not a sin one way, why should it be another? A liar is no better than a thief, and has not often any delicate scruples about discrimination; what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose; ducks take to a pond. Section 8. Playing cards or the indulgence between operatives in any game of chance for money is prohibited under penalty of dismissal. Section 9. Business entrusted to the service is the property of its clients, and operatives will so guard their actions and speech as to preserve inviolate the information obtained while in the discharge of their duties. Attention is also called to the fact that there has been a great deal of gos- siping, not alone among our employes, but with outside parties about the business of the Service. NOTE:-Railway officials will please take note of this, and that scare-crows are sometimes an expensive luxury. 1 Section 10. Discussions between operatives about the various cases in hand are strictly prohibited, neither must they discuss of the Service with their families. 86 JUDAS EXPOSED, NOTE:-Another instance where prohibition does not prohibit. Section 11. The salaries of the operatives are regulated and vary according to value and experience in the business, and must be treated as confidential. Under no circumstances will employes be permitted to receive rewards or gratuties for work done while in the employ of the Service. They must look to the proprietor solely for compensation. 1 Section 12. Operatives must not make notes upon magazines, books, newspapers or other reading matter. } Section 13. Leave your city address in the office and give notice of any change. Section 14. The habitual use of intoxicating drinks will seriously detract from the standing of an operative, and though it may be necessary in the prosecutions of some operations to use liquors as a means of cultivating the acquaintance, or to be well received by a suspected party, it must be dis- tinctly understood that liquor is to be resorted to only in extreme cases. Confessions, or evidence obtained of per- sons under the influence of liquors, are apt to be unreliable under the most favorable circumstances, and are entirely worthless in a court of justice. Section 15. Operatives must not recognize each other outside of the office, except where the nature of the business on which they are employed makes it necessary; nor must they be seen together on the streets or in public resorts at any OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 37 place whatever; failure to observe this will subject the offender to suspension. Section 16. Operatives should take the same care of their report- blanks as they do of their money, and must never carry them in their baggage. Section 17. No letters of recommendations will be given to persons leaving the Service. NOTE:-The Detective Agency will not take the risk. 1. Section 18. Written reports must be according to regular form, and are for the office-file, for future reference in the case. Section 19. To guard against injustice being done by any one upon whom an employe is called to operate, great care is enjoined to report everything as well for as against him. Facts unbiased by prejudice or preconceived judgement are wanted. Information of apparent value to the Service or its patrons, but not bearing upon the case in hand, should be embodied in a special report for the day and promptly for- warded to this office. NOTE: So the Agency can "tap" and "skin" their patrons again. Í Section 20. Operatives traveling about the country are cautioned not to put their pocket-books under their pillows at night, as that is the first place a sneak thief will look for valu- ables. Under the mattress, near the side of the car, is probably the safest place. 2 1 ■ } 38 JUDAS EXPOSED, 1 } 1 NOTE: This advice is necessary to some they have in their employ. r Section 21. Operatives must not, without my consent, use for per- sonal needs any funds furnished for traveling expenses. Any one doing so and in consequence overdrawing their accounts, can expect being dropped from the rolls. Section 22. Complaint is made to me by our sleeping car patrons that the notes of the operatives are not in every case so full as they should be in the matter of criticising the condi- tion of the car and its appurtenances and the manner in which emyloyes perform their duties. Operatives must understand that the Service is employed not alone in check- ing the cars, but also to pay strict attention that the regu- lations of the companies, laid down for the comfort of pas- sengers, are closely looked after and reported upon. I trust, therefore, that more attention will thereafter be paid to careful general observations. Section 23. Sleeping car conductors and porters are forbidden to recommend any particular line of travel or any particular hotel above another. Section 24. Passengers who change their berths during trips must be carried out to their destination in the berth in which they started, as for instance, "Man in lower 9, Kansas City to Las Vegas; 'See Notes'-then under the head of Remarks say: Man in lower 9 slept in lower 11 (or as the case may be) the second night. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. Section 25. Commit your passengers' faces to memory and asso- ciate them with their berths. Frequently a passenger gets off during the night and his berth is occupied by some one who got on during the night, (paying a fresh fare for the same berth,) hence the necessity of your being able to recall the faces in the morning and recognizing any new faces. own. 39. Section 26. Assume a different name to your reports than your NOTE:--The first step towards falsehood. Section 27. Do not purchase railroad tickets at hotel ticket-offices, as commissions are allowed on such tickets, but only at regular ticket offices. } Section 28. Familiarize yourself with the books of regulations issued by the Railway, Sleeping Car and Steamship Compa- nies to their employes and report any violation of the rules. Section 29. When traveling in sleeping cars, but engaged on other business, make out your expense account against the Sleeping Car Company for your railroad ticket and sleeping car berth, and send in this expense bill with your report. Section 30. Report cash fares for berths on sleepers. Never buy a railroad ticket beyond the end of your trip on sleeping car work, except when specially instructed to do so. + * t S [ } + $ + 40 JUDAS EXPOSED, Section 31. Complaints have been made from time to time of errors in reports. To enforce greater care in making observations in order to remedy the evil, whoever misses a passenger hereafter will be charged with the amount involved and the time consumed in making the trip, deducted from his salary. Allowance will be made for errors occurring by inexperienced men and where special agents get on sleepers after occupants have retired, or off before they are up. NOTE: Why should they send out inexperienced men, without the desire is to manufacture the evidence at their office? The frequency of errors is admitted by Mr. Zeal, who will punish his spotter if he is exceeded by the con- ductor, and the conductor, if he is exceeded by the spot- ter's errors in reports. Think of it. Section 32. Whenever in doubt to the occupancy of any berth, or in regard to points from or to which passengers rode, write opposite such berth, "See Notes," and then under the head of "remarks" make a full explanation. Section 33. I find that occasionally where operatives do not know that berths were occupied, but suspect them to be in use from the fact of having passengers for whom they cannot account, they will rely upon the statements of the employes of the car or of the passengers and then say that the berth was occupied either by a man or a woman, as the case may be. In all such cases as stated above, simply the word "notes" should be put into the space and an explanation of what was said or learned in regard to these berths put under the head of "Remarks." T 167 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 41 Section 34. Complaints have been received from superintendents of the Sleeping Car Companies to the effect that their employes have discovered special agents' blanks in their valises. Section 35. Operatives failing to get to railroad depots in time to buy tickets, will not be allowed for cash fares paid on train、 while making sleeping car trips. 1 Section 36. Operatives through no fault of theirs being obliged to pay cash railroad fares on sleeping cars, shall pay only to the first point where they can get a ticket, and take a receipt from the train conductor for the fare paid, making an excuse that they have lost their pass. NOTE:--Again told to lie. Section 37. Operatives must report the name and number of the car, (that each is checking up) and also the number of berth or seat check and the name of the conductor. Section 38. Agents (spotters) must note the personal appearance of conductors and porters and trainmen generally, with regard to cleanliness and neatness. Section 39. In all cases where special agents do not receive berth or seat checks, it should be mentioned in both separate reports, that is in the Occupancy Report and in the Inspec- tion Report. 42 JUDAS EXPOSED, を ​** } ? الله # { 1 量 ​I INSTRUCTIONS FOR TESTING RAILWAY CON- DUCTORS. Section 40. Before entering the car you are to check, note how many baggage cars, express cars, mail cars, passenger coaches or any other kind of coaches there are that com- pose the train. Also mention any changes in the make-up of the train during the trip. Also take the number of the coach which you enter and are to check. On entering a car to be checked, count the number of seats on each side separately. Section 41. Great care must be observed in noting cash fares. If the car is crowded, sit next to the aisle. Get to the train in time to secure the right kind of a seat, and if there is no other operative in the car sit about the second or last seat from the rear end. Section 42. Never lean over into the aisle to make observations, nor turn your head to get a fare, but act in an easy, natural manner, and sit in such a position as to observe all the movements of the conductor while in the car, without attracting his attention or that of any of his crew. NOTE: This is another instance of the many where the reader must not take the text of Mr. Zeal too ver- : OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE 43 1 { batim, but must scan what is written between the lines. For how on earth is a spotter able to get all the cash fares without missing one (and losing a half month's salary; see Section 31,) unless he leans over in the aisle, in a crowded car, or turns his head to get fares paid by passengers standing behind him, say near rear door, or sometimes on rear platform of his car, all of whom he is expected under penalty of fine or suspension, to report? Or, how can he observe all the movements of the conductor (some of which are quicker than the flash of a spotter's eye) without attracting the latter's attention, or the attention of other trainmen in the car? > Again, in a crowded car, passengers often get on at some way-stations and pay cash; upon arrival at some ticket office mixing first with the crowd at depots, slip into the ticket office and buy tickets which they hand to conductor sometimes in a car, other than the spotter is, checking and return into the car they paid cash in. Almost invariably the spotter who has not left his seat, and has not seen tickets bought or handed to conductor, by them, will report these passengers as paying cash clear through to their destination point; thus exceeding, unjustly, the con- ductor, in the collection of cash fares to a considerable amount! (See Sections 31, 52 and 83-85.) All these are irremediable defects of the System, hardly ever known by officials. Another great defect of Zeal's System is: No tickets are ever checked on passenger trains, as that is simply impossible!! No spotter ever checks, or pays any attention to, pas- sengers who give conductor tickets for their fare. It is evident, though little known by railway officials, that pas- sengers known to conductors could buy tickets for a short { 蠶 ​44 JUDAS EXPOSED, བརྗངས } distance only and ride all the remainder of their journey free, or for personal consideration understood beforehand -if the conductor felt inclined to connive and wink at it- and the spotter would never be the wiser for it as he never pays any attention except to passengers paying cash on passenger trains only. On freight trains the spotter checks tickets also, and free fares or dead-heads, (see Section 68.) Section 43. Do not stand upon the platforms long enough to make yourself conspicuous. NOTE: The detective has to do this, especially at night to notice any changes in the make-up of the train. Section 44. Do not voluntarily engage in conversation with con- ductor or train crew; if approached by anyone and "pumped," give a reasonable and plausible excuse for being on the train. NOTE: Told to lie again. I Section 45. The newsboys generally are difficult to evade and the best way to get rid of them is to have nothing to do with them. NOTE:--Newsboys, making long round-trips, and see- ing a spotter more frequently, catch on to his business quicker than conductors, who run only from one division point to the other of the road. Section 46. You are especially enjoined while testing railroad con- ductors to avoid all public places of resort, or stopping at hotels where railroad conductors are in the habit of stopping. J OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. Į 45 Section 47. Also avoid places where you will be liable to meet friends. NOTE--This rule is inactive in practice, and operatives generally see their friends and tell them their business. Section 48. No memoranda of any kind must be made in the body of the car. The reason is obvious: A friend of the con- ductor may be sitting in view who might call his attention to it and then arouse suspicion. The water-closet may fre- quently be used for this purpose. Section 49. Be careful not to do the conductor an injustice. If in doubt regarding a fare, state the facts as you understand them in which shape they will be reported to the company where the matter will be decided on its merits. NOTE: If he misunderstands the facts, which occurs frequently, (see Section 31) the case is generally decided against the conductor. Section 50. If the name of the conductor cannot be ascertained, a full description of him must be given in the report. His punchmark is also a means of identification, the shape of which should be drawn on the report, provided his name cannot be learned. Section 51. In the case of a freight conductor if his name cannot be obtained, the number of his caboose will answer the purpose, as generally each freight conductor has his own caboose. + For t # I ฯ 1 + + JUDAS EXPOSED, Section 52. Where a passenger apparently pays for another besides himself, a very full statement of the transaction must be made, showing why more than one fare is sup- posed to have been paid, such as: "Motioned toward the other;" "Came in and went out together;" "That the other did not give anything," or that you heard the pas- senger say: "I will pay for both, or so and so,” as the case may be. (See Section 31, 42, 71, 52. Also pages 123-125, 157, 166.) NOTE:Here is another defect and inefficiency of Zeal's System. Take a large crowded car, and passengers standing or moving in the aisle, how can the spotter in that last seat, way back in the rear of the car, see, if a double or triple or quadruple cash fare is paid in the front part of the car? He cannot even see if a passenger "apparently" pays for another besides himself, nor can he "suppose" it. He can but rarely, if ever, say what a motion a passenger may make, means; then there are lots and lots of passengers "who come in and go out together" without paying cash for each other, as well as there are cases of passengers "giving nothing," or showing nothing to conductor, the latter well aware that they have passes, the numbers of which are well known to the conductor, who will make a note of it as soon as convenient. Besides it is impossible for the spotter in the rear part of the car to "hear what may be said by a passenger" in the front part, in a whisper, "He would pay for so and so" above the roar produced by the motion of the train and the bubble and din of conver- sation of the passengers. This occurring at numerous stations, the spotter's statement "should be full," indeed -of nonsense. 46 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 47 1 } } Section 53. Operatives having occasion to report free passengers should state what they look like; as for instance, farmers business men, drummers, railroad men, etc., etc. Section 54. State the ages of children. Section 55. Some railroad companies require conductors to issue train-tickets, duplex, excess, draw-back checks or cash fare- slips, to cash-paying passengers. In such cases be particu- lar to see whether the check is cancelled and delivered, or not. Section 56. If conductor fails to issue such a check (to a cash- paying passenger) endeavor under some pretext, if it can be done without exciting the suspicion of anyone, to get the name and address of the passenger paying the fare. Section 57. The conductor should issue check or ticket for each passenger paid for, and all failures to do so must be dis- tinctly mentioned in the operative's report. 2 C Section 58. In all cases where you pay a cash fare and receive a ticket or check, specify the number and form thereof in the description of the fare and-unless taken up by the con- ductor-attach it to the report. Section 59. Railroad Companies refund to my Detective Agency all the amounts paid for tickets and cash fares, upon my furnishing them a bill of the same. } } + 48 JUDAS EXPOSED, } L 1 Section 60. Vexatious delays have occurred in the payment of these bills from errors in the numbers of tickets as well-as also suspicion of the accuracy of work done by such operatives. Section 61. Hence be very careful that no errors are made in this respect. Any deduction made by the companies from the bills in this connection will be charged to the operative making the error. Section 62. If a cash-paying passenger goes from one car into another, notify the operative covering that car of the fact. This should be done by writing on a small card and hand- ing to said operative the information as follows: "M. 5. 1. n. w. (or a.)" which would indicate: "The man in 5th seat, left side, next to window (or aisle)" has paid cash fare, and the operative to whom it is given is expected to get his destination. NOTE:-See Section 90, page 57, cash-fares 5, 6 and 7. Section 63. 1 Familiarize yourself with the countenances of all cash- paying passengers, so that you can pick them up without making any mistake, provided they change into some other car. Section 64. Instances have occurred of railroad officials either posting conductors that a test was impending or putting some one on the train to prove the accuracy of the obser- vations. * Section 65. The serious consequences both to yourself and to the service of a careless or false report are too apparent to J OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 49 require comment. Hence be careful to report all transac- tions just as they are and do not draw upon the imagination for facts. Section 66. Never make a round-trip with a conductor except spec- ially instructed to do so. Section 67. If you have any occasion to report any misconduct on the part of railway employes, and you have not got their names, describe them accurately so that they can be iden- tified by railway managers. Unless this is done the report is valueless. Section 68. In testing freight conductors always check the entire number of passengers, giving points from and to which they ride; what each gave for their passage; whether ticket, cash, pass or free. (See the note to Section 42.) Section 69. Operatives reporting defects in railway cars such as foul water-closets, etc., must report them by the number of the car, and not as first car, second car, third car, etc. Section 70. Familiarize yourself with the form and phraseology used in describing cash-fares as illustrated elsewhere in this book, and observe the same in writing up your report. Section 71. Where operatives become confused making observations and are from any reason unable to make a correct report, ↓ J G 1 50 JUDAS EXPOSED, A > 1 £ علم or feel that their observations are imperfect, they should invariably so state in their reports. NOTE:-See Sections 31, 42, 52, 83-85 etc., also pages 123-125, 156-166. Section 72. I desire to report nothing to my patrons excepting what can be substantiated under oath, and operatives failing to comply with the above precaution shall not receive further employment. NOTE:-See Section 31, 42, 52, 83--85; also pages 123- 125, 157-166, and bear in mind where the system is abso- lutely imperfect and defective; add to this the confusion confessed to by Mr. Zeal in Section 71 about his oper- atives while making observations, and from any other rea- son, such as lack of memory, weak eyesight, dull hearing, they be unable to make a correct report, and for numerous other draw-backs, as specified elsewhere in this book; and can it be doubted-everything fairly, frankly and impartially considered on both sides, that in very many instances that "desire to report nothing to his patrons but what can be substantiated under oath," becomes a vanity, if not á cover to hide the inefficiencies and absolute incompetency of the system and that a perfect check of a train or anything near it, in very many instances is an absolute impossibility and a fake? Section 73. Expense items not set forth in the operative's report of the day, or not shown necessary by the nature of the case will not be allowed. Section 74. Expenses must be kept down by the lowest figures consistent with the requirements of each case. High-priced J 1 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 51 1 hotels must be avoided unless a special object is to be gained by patronizing them. Section 75. } Two dollars per day will be allowed for subsistence while on duty, and 50 cents per week for washing; any excess of these amounts will be stricken off. In the sleep- ing car service twenty-five cents porterage fee will be allowed for each trip in addition. > Section 76. No subsistence will be allowed operatives while they are at any of the offices of this Agency, excepting thirty-five cents for breakfast on the day of his arrival, and thirty-five cents for supper on the day of departure. Section 77. Operatives employed on special work, or in the service of railroad companies, as clerks, brakemen, engineers, fire- men, section-laborers, freight warehouse truckers, etc., will be allowed their actual expenses only, at the lowest figure, such as men in similar positions would be apt to pay. Section 78. Operatives must return all money received for travel- ing or other expenses not accounted for in their expense bills; this order is imperative and anyone disregarding it may expect dismissal from the Service. * Section 79. Expense accounts should be rendered in the name of corporations or individuals for whom they are incurred. **** *** 攀 ​$ 52 JUDAS EXPOSED, Section 80. Expense accounts in connection with railroad, sleeping car or steamship companies' checking, must be rendered in two parts, the first covering the tickets and the second the subsistence. Section 81. Items omitted in previous bills will not be allowed operatives when inserted later. Section 82. When operatives use the sleeping car privilege to reach other work, they must forward with the sleeping car report an expense bill for the railroad and sleeping car tickets (the amount of which will always be refunded to me by the sleeping car companies) and such bills must not include porterage and subsistence. NOTE: --See pages 157-166. Section 83. To chief operatives in charge of checking: From recent reports I find that some of the operatives are grossly negligent in making out their reports, and that the chief operatives in charge do not look over them with sufficient care before sending these reports into the Agency's offices. NOTE:-See pages 157-165. Section 84. It has also come to my notice that some of the opera- tives on night runs do not keep awake, and the consequence is that the operatives are greatly exceeded in cash fares by } A } 1 " OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 58 the conductors; now this is bad. The operative in charge should hold one man responsible on train to see that the others are awake and to report the matter, and if it is found that any one has been asleep on any trip and it has not been reported by the others, and the conductor exceeds them in cash fares, the whole squad will be discharged. NOTE:--One instance of many will be cited here, that occurred on the Q. railroad. One operative, J. K., a nephew of Mr. Zeal's, and very ambitious, had been asleep, be- tween Denver and Holdredge. During this night, another operative entered his (operative J. K's) car, en route, who gave to conductor a ticket for his fare, which was duly can- celled by the conductor. The latter operative's name was E. McNary. The first operative J. K. waking from his nap, made a note in the water-closet and afterwards reported E. McNary as a cash-paying passenger in his report of obser- vation. When the reports of the two spotters were com- pared at the Agency's office, Mc Nary's report showed, that he had not paid cash, but had given ticket for his fare, and J. K. was requested to change his report in this respect. It was a mere accident that this "mistake" was detected, but how many "mistakes" must this ambitious spotter already have made in his false reports against conductors? He has been promoted to be chief operative! . Ķ - Section 85. The operatives in charge should as soon as possible learn what kind of a looking check for cash fares is in use on the road, and he should see that the operatives call them by their right names. When we say what kind of a check for cash fare paid, we mean whether it is called a draw-back check or a rebate check, or a train check, or a cash fare slip, etc. I $ JUDAS EXPOSED, 54 Section 86. In describing cash fares mention: 1. For whom they were paid. Locate them. 2. 3. Describe the transaction. Section 87. The number of the car (1st, 2d or 3d, etc.,) should be mentioned before the number of the seat is mentioned in your report. This is the order in which they are finally written up, and uniformity in describing the cash fares will facilitate their preparation on the type-writing machine. for your original report. Section 88. Children accompanying parents or adults should be described by their ages, viz: Man, woman and two chil- dren (the latter 8 and 10 years of age) in second car, fourth and fifth seats, right side. The man in 5th seat, right side, next to the aisle, gave the conductor coins and received two draw-back checks. - Section 89. Where a man is accompanied by a woman and uses a ticket for himself and pays cash also, it should be described as follows: Woman in 2d car, 6th seat, right side, near window, accompanied by a man in same seat. The latter gave conductor what I took to be a pass and some coins, evidently for the woman, who did not give anything. Con- ductor issued draw-back check, retaining duplicate. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 55 i Section 90. FORM FOR WRITING A TRAIN REPORT. OPERATIVE'S INITIALS, M. C. S. At 8:00 A. M., Friday, June 1st, 1889, I left Wooster for Albion, on Trip No. 66, Train No. 2, Conductor John Roe []. (If name can- not be given draw his punchmark and describe in "Notes"), arriv- ing at 4:30 P. M., Friday, June 1st, 1889. The train consisted of one Mail car, one Baggage and Express car combined, two passenger coaches, one Chair car, one Tourist- sleeper, one first-class sleeper, and one Special car. The Special car was detatched at Congress. Did conductor cancel your ticket? Did conductor cancel all other tickets? Did conductor note cash-fares on collection ? Was conductor uniformed and if not, what part of uniform was not worn? Were brakemen uniformed? How many brakemen were there? Was the car clean and urinals inodorous ? Was the car properly lighted, heated and ventilated? Did any of the crew smoke or drink on duty? Were all stations distinctly announced? Was station you started from open 80 minutes before train- time? W Was anyone at stations to check freight in and out of cars? (Give name of stations where there was none ?) Was baggage carefully han- dled ? (If not, state where and give particulars.) Did your car have a supply of good water? Did any one ride on engine except crew? Any familiarity between con- ductor and crew? Were ashes emptied while in motion ? Were any of the crew suspic- ious of test? (If any suspicion, explain fully in notes.) Give number of free pas- sengers. (In notes describe free passengers and give point from and to which they rode.) * 56 JUDAS EXPOSED, (The above should be answered by yes or no, and if there are any violations or omissions, explain fully in "Notes.") Average speed of train 30 miles per hour. 1 (Familiarize yourself with time-card and report excess of rate in "Notes.") Manner of Conductor. … …. "C "Brakemen "News Agent (If any manner or efficiency was defective, explain fully in "Notes.") J Efficiency of Conductor... "Brakemen. 66 1 I used no ticket but paid cash, $5.10, and received draw-back- check, No. 67, Form N, Book No. 30. Received it from conductor. Issued by the Electric-speed R. R., on train No. 2, good from Wooster to Albion; dated June 1st, 1889. I sat in 1st car, 15th seat, right side in car No. D. H. 1 (or Caboose No...) which had 15 seats on right side and 16 seats on left side. At. I changed to…___seat______side in Car No..----- which had.. -- -seats on right side and______seats on left side, and observed the following cash-fares collected by conductor: LEAVING WOOSTER. 1) Man in 1st car, 4th seat, right side, gave conductor a bill and received coins and a draw-back check which conductor can- celled in duplicate as he issued it. Went to Burbank. LEAVING WOOSTER. 2 and 3) Double fare. Man and woman in 1st car, 7th seat, left side; man next to aisle gave a bill and pointed to the woman. The conductor issued but one draw-back check, which he cancelled in duplicate. Both went to Congress. LEAVING WOOSTER. 4) Myself in 1st car, 15th seat, right side on conductor's ap- proach inquired the fare to Albion; he replied: "$5.10" where- upon I gave him a $10.00 bill and received two $2.00 bills, three twenty-five-cent coins, one ten-cent coin and a nickel; also draw- back check No. 67,. Form N, Book No. 30, which the conductor cancelled in duplicate as he issued it. Went to Albion. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 57 } LEAVING CONGRESS. 5, 6 and 7) Three doubtful fares. Three men were standing behind me, near the rear door, when conductor approached them. 1 cannot state what they gave, for, according to section 42, I must not lean over or turn my head to catch cash-fares, but act in an easy, natural manner; money they had, for I heard a minute later, one of the trio say he had a dollar left, and therefore was not broke. All three then went into another car, covered by operative Tim Twiggem. I went up to said three men to make sure of their identity, when one them offered me á cigar and invited me to sit down with them and make myself sociable. I replied I had no time and took his cigar. I tipped them all right to operative Twiggem who will give you their destinations. I returned to look for more doubtful fares. Went to ask Twiggem. / FROM ELECTRIC-SPEED R. R. CO. I Hereby Certify, That while in the Special Service of this Company, I purchased at the Depot Ticket Office of the Electric- Speed R. R. at Nobhill, Ticket No. 444, Form No. 611. Value $50.00. From Nobhill to Bedrocks. Route, Electric-Speed R. R. Date June 3rd, 1889. JOHN CATCHEMQUICK, Operative for Zeal's Detective Agency. Section 92. LIST OF FARES For Trip No. 67. Train No. 3. 4 Section 91. CERTIFICATE OF R. R. TICKET. 66 Etc. Leaving Kansas City for Denver at 8:00 P. M., Sunday, June 10th, 1889. Couductor Kansas City | Brookville 66 Wamego Lawrence 46 Etc. TO NOS. OF CASH FARES 1212 Etc. 1 M REMARKS. ぐ ​ Operative A. B. paid $. Paid by operatives C. D. & E. F. ea. $... Operative G. H. paid $1.20. Doubtful. Etc. JUDAS EXPOSED. : # 1 t Section 93. COMPARISON OF FARES For Trip No. 67. Train No. 3. 1 Leaving Kansas City for Brookville at 8:00 P. M., Sunday, June 10th, 1889. Conductor, John Roe []. FROM " 6 ** 64 46 Kans. City Brookville Wamego 66 ΤΟ From Lawrence 66 46 To NO. Operatives' Initials. FARES A.B. O.D. E.F. G.H. J. I. 183 Route 2 4 5 6 1 1 1 Leave 1 12 K. C. Br'kville U. P. 8 pm June 10 Brookville Wallace .. 46 66 46 Wallace Denver 2 Section 94. OPERATIVE'S INSTRUCTION BLANK. Given to Conductor Arrive Bill Coins Bill & coins! O'p've G.H Doubtful "L Hour Date Hour Date June 4. 66 T'n No. 3 889 |T'p No 67 CarNo.44 Returned to Passenger. Coins & Check No Change," Coins and Paid $1.20 Pay Cash or Ticket 367 44] Cash 368 49 Ticket 869 601 Cash 16 Opera- tives' Initials A. B. "" L OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 50% { Operative Operation for Date of pur- chasing ticket or berth check A. B. U. P. R. R. Testing Cons. 1 Operat'v's' Names No. of Days When bought. Location of Ticket Office Nature of Operation Section 95. OFFICE BLANK. Section 96. Notice to operatives: Enter below: 1st, tickets and relative berth checks; 2d subsistence, in detail, adding each separately. N. B.-Where cash is paid on train and excess or draw-back ticket is received in return, Book No., Form No., and consecutive Nos. must be entered. Where none is received say: "No Check." EXPENSE P Book No. June 10 U. Depot N G-105 Rate BILL OF "AH THERE?" IN ACCOUNT WITH O. K. R. R. CO. For tickets and berth checks Form No. 30 $8.00 Consecu- tive No. 30 Amount 240 00 Section 97. OFFICE BLANK. Detective Agency's Salary Sheet for the Month of June, 1889. 1 Remarks 12345678910 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 3777 K. City Denver U. P. J. I. 1815 Amt. Paid. P L. F. I 1 8 : 1 } } $ 60 JUDAS EXPOSED, COPY OF AN ACTUAL CHECK AND COMPARISON OF CASH FARES The names of the Stations from and to which passengers rode are omitted. Reported by operatives and Conductor John Brown, for Trip No. 3, Train No. 5, from……… to---- Friday, May 1, 1889, before he was aware that a check was in progress: Operatives' Report. Conductors' Report, Deficit of Conductor, Percentage of Deficit, Fares Fares Fares not Fares not Reported Reported Reported Reported by by by by Operatives Conductor. Operatives Conductor No. Amt. No. Amt. No. Amt. No. Amt. 1Q200 DON 8 2 45 2 85 1 75 1 55 85 30 8 Amt. fares rep'ted by ope’tives. 12 90 Amount of Fares Reported by Conductor, Amount Fares not Reported by Operative, Amount Fares not Reported by Conductor, SUMMARY. 2 15 1 00 $ 1 Q2 00 3 3 · 35 1 90 65 1 90 23 3 35 90 65 1 90 1QBALOZ 2 8 8 8 3 10 5 2 45 2 85 1 75 1 55 85 30 2 15 1 00 12 90 12 90 190 11 00 .90 Conscientious Railroad Manager to exalted and pompous Detective Employer Zeal: Are all those operatives of yours honest, Mr. Gaukey Zeal? I must put this interrogatory in good form and shove it under your nose, and if your answer is satisfactory I shall discharge conductor Brown with your gracious permission. Have you still in your employ chiefs of gangs of spotters who blackmail the conductors, and require them to "divy" in consideration of their notifying them when spotters were to go on their trains? and if they sell out their employer once, will they not do so to the railroad? This is a per- tinent question. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 61 I SPECIAL AGENTS' GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS ON SLEEPING CAR WORK. Section 98. Your attention is first directed to the importance of reporting correctly the number and form of your railroad ticket. Section 99. Before leaving this office be sure you know the names of the roads over which you are to travel, and when pur- chasing your railroad ticket, ask for one via the lines you were told to take. Copy the number and form of your ticket at once and see that you make no mistake as the railroad companies will not refund the amount paid unless the number and form is correctly reported, and you will be compelled to lose the cost of your ticket, whatever that may be, if you make any mistake in repeating the correct form and number. Section 100. In checking sleeping cars it is not necessary to take the number of the berth ticket, but instead report the number of the check issued to you by the sleeping car conductor when he takes up your berth ticket. Section 101. The next thing of importance is to get the name of the sleeping car on which you ride. Having taken the number and form of your railroad ticket. 63 JUDAS EXPOSED, 1 $ A Section 102. The number of the check received from the sleeping car conductor and noted the name of the car, you should begin to check the car for which the following hints may be of some help to you. Section 103. After leaving the starting point and passengers have been assigned to their respective berths, perhaps the best thing for you to do is to count your passengers. Section 104. Then make a mental note in this fashion: The occu- pant of lower one is a small man with gray hair, sandy mustache, has a small diamond in his scarf and a Masonic badge attached to his watch chain. Go through the car in this manner taking note of all passengers, thus fixing their appearance in your memory and at the same time associ- ating each passenger with the berth he or she occupies. You are then in shape to discover in the morning whether a berth has been occupied twice during the night. Do not base your report on such observation as the above alone. In addition notice the passengers as they retire and get up, so far as you possibly can. 1 Section 105. Never place an occupant in a berth because you thought he belonged in it but if linen looks as if it had been used and you did not see any one get in or out of it, put "See Notes" opposite such berth and then explain what you know about it. . Section 106. If there are any passengers in car whom you did not see retire or arise, you should explain this and say where 1 1 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 6$ J 1 you think they slept, which you could probably determine in noting where they sat, where they had their baggage and what berths were made down, but from which you did not see anyone arise. Section 107. You cannot exercise too great care in making notes of your observations. Section 108. Never make a note in body of car or any place where you could be seen. The only place where you can safely make notes on car is gentlemen's saloon. Section 109. You should act perfectly natural, the same as other passengers. · Section 110. Do not, in your eagerness to check the car and make observations, act in such a way as to attract attention to yourself. See pages 157-166. Section 111. You should endeavor to see most of the passengers retire and in this way confirm your observations you have already made. In order to see all the passengers retire you cannot go to bed very early yourself, and in the morn- ing again you should endeavor to be up in time to see as many of the passengers arise as possible. You should avoid, however, being the last to retire and the first to arise, as this would be almost certain to cause you to be- come suspected. Section 112. When you retire it is not necessary to lie awake unless the train is approaching some large station where it is likely 7 '64 JUDAS EXPOSED, $ E I } that passengers will board the car. Most likely any passen- gers who get on during the night will still be in their berths when you arise in the morning, so that you can see them get up, and that will enable you to report what berths they occupied. In such cases it will be sufficient to say that those passengers boarded the car during night, giving the number of the berths they retired to. # Section 113. Notice whether telegraph blanks are in rack; that carpet is in good order; that gents' closet and wash stands are kept clean and in good condition, the latter is free from soiled towels; also say if the closet is ventilated, or in some other way kept free from bad odors. See whether the appurtenances of the car, brooms, pails, etc., are kept out of sight, and that it is kept as clean as circumstances will permit. State whether ventilation is looked after and if the car is kept at such a temperature as is agreeable; and when anything is not as it should be, state the hour you first noticed it and how long it was allowed to remain in that condition before being corrected. Section 114. Never make a general charge in your report that car or urinal was dirty. Give the particulars. In other words let your reports be so full and explicit about every- thing you think needs attention, that the official to whom it goes will understand it as clearly as if he had seen it with his own eyes. Section 115. You are liable to be suspected even without any cause on your part, and therefore you should always be prepared to answer promptly any questions as to the occasion for 1 } LF } 65 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. } 蟊 ​making the trip. Passengers are liable to quizz you, tell everyone the same story. When under suspicion, act naturally and do not pay any attention to anything that be said or done by the crew, avoiding any controversy or altercation. Section 116. Do not carry any report blanks in your baggage or place any valuables under your head. Either carry them on your person or place them under the mattress next to the window. Section 117. Avoid all unnecessary conversation with the crew, so that should you be obliged to travel with them again, they` will be less likely to recall you. Section 118. If you know you are going to make a round trip with the same crew, prepare them for seeing you on the return trip, which you can do by mentioning the fact that you intend to return in the evening (or whatever time you cal- culate to return.) You can inquire when the train leaves on the return trip, etc. They will be less apt to suspect you, if you take the above precautions. Section 119. Do not claim to come from any town or city, unless you are well acquainted there and can talk intelligently about the place. Section 120. If you are asked anything by the conductor or porter as to your destination, business, etc., you should be ready to give them a prompt and plausible answer, but in doing > I と ​Sho محمد } { 66 } this be careful not to tell a story that can readily be disproved. } JUDAS EXPOSED, ኑ NOTE: This is educating them to commit perjury. Į Mad Ma Section 121. In a number of instances special agents (spotters) when asked by the conductor where they were going, what their business was, etc., told him some story as to their destination and business which while plausible enough, was afterward found by the conductor to be untrue and thus caused them to be suspected. They would say, for instance, that they were going to a certain place (like Hot Springs, Ark.) to remain there probably several weeks or a month, whereas they would be seen returning by the conductor or porter a day or two later. Section 122. If you claim to be in any particular business, do not select anything that you are not well posted on as it might so happen that the conductor would know all about that par- ticular business. As a general rule it is best not to volun- teer any information. It is well also to avoid entering into conversation with the employes without, however, seeming anxious to avoid them. Section 123. Some of the sleeping car conductors after getting the number of passes held by certain parties sometimes report a berth as occupied by a free passenger, when they have really received cash for same. Hence, be on the look-out constantly for cash paying passengers and note same oppo- site the berth in your report by the word "Cash." OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 67 * Section 124. Read the regulations of the sleeping car companies and by familiarizing yourself with the respective duties of conductors and porters, you will be more competent to criti- cise them. Your ignorance of the rules will not excuse you from making improper criticisms or failing to note other matters which you should report upon. Section 125. Employes should be neat in dress, suave and polite in their intercourse with passengers. Section 126. You must in addition to answering questions in the inspection blanks make some comments upon the condition of the car and the way in which the crew conducted them- selves. Section 127. It becomes necessary from time to time to issue new orders in regard to sleeping car, railroad, and other service. # Section 128. These orders will be posted on the bulletin boards which agents should examine carefully every time, they return to their respective offices in the city. Section 129. FORM OF A CERTIFICATE BLANK FOR R. R. TICKET Bought over sleeping-car lines while checking sleeping-cars. MORPHEUS' SLEEPING CAR COMPANY. Division. I Hereby Certify, That while in the Special Service of this Com- pany I purchased at the Ticket office... Railroad Co., Ticket No....... Form No..... Value, $--- .to... Route------ Date... 1889. JAMES BEDBUG, Special Agent. at.. From.. 1 髯 ​A 6 * $ k 5 68 7 SECTIONS HQB4100 Section 130. FRONT PAGE OF A SPECIAL AGENT'S OCCUPANCY REPORT. 2 ' 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 18 14 Drawing Room Smoking Room State Room SECTIONS HQB45670 1 2 3 CONOCERS 8 9 10 11 } 12 13 14 Drawing Room Smoking Room State Room JUDAS EXPOSED, NO. OF PASSENGERS Man and Woman 2 Women Man Woman and Child Man Man 2 Men Man and Boy 2 Girls Man Woman 2 Boys Woman Man Conductor Porter Man and Woman NO. OF PASSENGERS \ Man 2 Boys Man Man 2 Men Girl Woman Man Man 2 Men Boy Man Agent Waiter Girl CONDUCTOR. Manner-Dudish. Efficiency-Way up, FROM Saint Louis 66 1. 66 66 66 06 เ (6 On in night Saint Louis "L 46 "" "" * FROM On in night Saint Louis "L 56 " "L 66 66 On in night Saint Louis 66 66 (4 (6 = } LOWERS TO Chicago UPPERS "L 46 66 66 (6 66 66 Off in night " * Chicago +6 " Latter part of night Fore part of night Off in night TO Chicago, Cash "L * 64 66 "" Section, Chicago (6 66 (( " Off in night "L Off en route. Hyde Park All night in Off in night PORTER AND WAITER. Manner-Polite. Efficiency-Good. ؟ 1 * Is £ Q 69 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. Line No... Car... Conductor.. Porter Waiter. From Το J REAR PAGE OF A SPECIAL AGENT'S REPORT. Kamp MORPHEUS' SLEEPING CAR CO. Leaving Arriving. Route Ticket No.---. Form No... Office bought at.. Cost.. Check No. __1713. Langtry. -Freddy Gebhardt. George Golden. Oscar Wilde. Saint Louis. Chicago. 8:00 P. M., June 10th, 1889. 7:30 A. M., June 11th, 1889. O. K. R. R. Co. 10001. 13-11.- Union Depot, Saint Louis. -$9.00. K.-56033.- JAMES BEDBUG, G Special Agent. F Notes, etc., etc.: I wish to state that the conductor was seen to retire at 3 A. M. into the drawing-room of car Langtry, as I was peeping through the crack of the curtains of the W. C. " •* 3 £ ? + 8. 1 S ¦ 호 ​70* JUDAS EXPOSED, Section 131. FRONT PAGE OF A SPECIAL AGENT'S INSPECTION REPORT. MORPHEUS' SLEEPING CAR COMPANY. Was ventilation attended to? Were electric bells in working order? Were they promptly answered? Were hand-railings wiped? Platforms swept? And stepping-box put out at principal stations? Was soiled linen promptly put away In locker ? Was linen in good condition? Were berths made up neatly? And safety cords used ? Did porter use stepping-box when necessary? And wear white jacket buttoned in making up and down berths ? Were berth badges hung out? Were supplementary curtains tendered to ladies? Did porter spread blankets and sheets on berth separately? Was step-ladder furnished persons occupying upper berths ? Did waiter solicit buffet orders ? Were orders promptly and satisfactorily executed? Did waiter wear apron, white jacket and towel to serve lunches? Did he use salver to present checks and make collections ? Were berth, lunch and seat checks promptly issued and can- celled? Were employes out to receive passengers at important stations? Did employes keep uniform coats buttoned? Did agents pay cash fare for berth or seat, or have ticket ? Were spittoons kept clean? And saloons looked after and dis- infected. Were wash stands clean and well supplied with towels? Were car equipments kept in their respective places ? Was car dusted, swept and kept in good order? Was car unguarded any time, day or night? Did porter command view of berths ? Did any of the crew smoke, drink or play cards ? Were crew familiar with each other. • } Š 1 } 1 } 3 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 1 71 Was there any sleeping on watch? State hour? How long? Position occupied ? Did train employes lounge in body of sleeper? Who? Between? Were crew polite, attentive and neat in appearance? Were lamps in good trim ? Were deflectors and pillows tendered to passengers? Were tel- egraph blanks in rack? Did car appear to have been well cleaned before leaving termi- nus? Was carpet in good repair? Were passengers' shoes blacked in proper manner? Was any fee demanded by porter? i (Read the companies' regulations and report any other irregu- larities you may see. Answer above questions by "yes,” “no,” “good” or “see notes." In case of violation go into full particulars in notes.) JAMES BEDBUG, Special Agent. > } 10 1 #$ F [ 72 JUDAS EXPOSED, } Section 132. &m REAR PAGE OF A SPECIAL AGENT'S INSPECTION REPORT. MORPHEUS' SLEEPING CAR COMPANY. Date, June 10th and 11th, 1889. Line No. 1713. Saint Louis Division. To: Chicago. Car: Langtry. First District. From: Saint Louis. Porter: George Golden. Agent's trip from Main St. Depot to Hyde Park. Route: O. K. R. R. Co. Conductor: Freddy Gebhardt. Waiter: Oscar Wilde. JAMES BEDBUG, Special Agent. Special Remarks: The porter in the forepart of the evening asked me what number of pebbles I used to fortify my eyesight; I replied it depended entirely on the light in the car; whereupon he offered me an opera glass, of extra strength, which he kept on the Langtry, and said he would leave curtains unbuttoned in front of my berth, and tell Mr. F. Gebhardt to present a correct diagram in the morning for my inspection which I might copy before reaching destination point. The temperature in the car was that of flowers. Porter swept front, and waiter rear platform of car Langtry, and conductor used feather-duster to great advantage. I tipped the por- ter a dollar in the morning, for marking three XXX onto the soles of my shoes, which is for: see you later on. "De June-bug got de golden wing, De lightnin'-bug de fame; De spotter got no wing at all, But he git dar all de same." ELI. > OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 73 Section 183. ZEAL'S PATRONAGE BAITING. (A CUSTOMARY CIRCULAR SENT TO RAILROAD OFFICIALS.) The following tables of collections by and deficits of railway and passenger conductors are submitted for the information of railway officials. They form only a small portion of the tests made by this service, as in many cases the companies, on receiving the description of the fares observed collected, made their own comparisons, and in such instances I do not know the results of the tests. Section 134. Wherever I have made comparisons for the railways (for which copies of the conductor's reports are necessary) I have invariably first furnished them a list of fares seen collected, that my subsequent services were. merely in a clerical capacity and of a nature in which any one in their employ, familiar with conductors' reports, could have acted. ہے Section 135. I am occasionally met with the statement that the new men will in a short time fall into the same habits as the old and in reply would say, that after a test the company has knowledge of what collections in cash should be, and if they fall off without apparent cause, it is ground for inves- tigation. Section 136. It is to be admitted that unless the new men have reason to believe they will be looked after they are liable to the ways of their predecessors, and there is but one remedy } 74 JUDAS EXPOSED, 1 and that is, if their returns do not appear satisfactory check them. Section 137. The experience of railroads who resort to occasional checks is that they do not suffer to anything like the extent they did before, and the majority of the men soon learn to work for their salaries alone. Section 188. I would further say in connection with peculations. from cash collections that the enormous deficits shown within have resulted after a long time, and were at the hands of men who had been in the undisturbed enjoyment of their positions for oue or more decades. NOTE: This cannot be so, for in that length of time they would own the road. Section 139. I need scarcely add that every observant person is aware of, that large peculations are not, as a rule, sudden out- growths, but they are the result of unbridled license. Section 140. To officers who would like to know if their employes are making correct returns, but hesitate to resort to this method for fear of doing them injustice, I have to say that the transaction of detective business, on the principle of the old adage of "setting a thief to catch a thief," has long been discarded by reputable and intelligent employers of detectives. Section 141. I find no more difficulty in securing for my business, men of the highest reputation for honesty and integrity, than does any other vocation or profession. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 75 " 1 Section 142. My men, as a rule, are strangers to railway employes and are paid by me by the day for their work, no matter whether their observations show the companies' employes honest or otherwise, and are not permitted to hear the result of tests unless they hear of it accidentally; thus by this system reducing the incentive for making false reports to the minimum. See pages 123–125, 157–166, and sections 31 and 32, 42, 71, 83, 84. Section 143. Again: Granted that the observations are conscien- tiously made, can a train be accurately checked? To prove that it can I have but to refer to the within tables where in many instances checked honest conductors and it will be seen that we correspond with them exactly. In those cases the operatives reported the fares from and to the same stations in every instance as the conductors did. See sections 42, 52 and 72. Section 144. Additional proof of the accuracy of the observations is found (as I have learned from railway managers) by the admission of conductors after having been charged with the peculations. See page 158. 125. Section 145. A conductor should never fall below the report of the operatives; the latter however, are sometimes exceeded by the conductor, which cannot be avoided in every case as fares are occasionally paid in excessively crowded cars where in order to see them, the operatives would attract attention. NOTE:-See sections 31, 42, 52, 71, 83, 84, pages 123- This is an excuse for the inefficiency of his system. ĥ { 1 JUDAS EXPOSED, 76. 1. + 1 A Section 146. In further illustration of the above attention is directed to page, which is the copy of one of many actual reports of observations wherein conductors and operatives tallied exactly. The passengers in their check, in many instances rode only from one station to another. These are the most difficult kind of trains to check, requiring the closest appli- cation to in order not to get the stations from and to which the passengers rode, confused. NOTE:-Tally on light, not on crowded trains. 7 Section 147. That this method of keeping down peculations is effec- tive and satisfactory to a large number of railways, is evi- denced by the fact that I am periodically employed by them, and again on others. Section 148. Where a drawback or some other kind of an excess check is in use, thus enabling one single operative covering one car, on the whole train, only to render effective service, I have men constantly employed like on the St. L. and S. F. R. R. making observations. Section 149. I have personally had thirty years' experience in this business, have in my employ an experienced staff of detec- tives, and am prepared, in addition to checking conductor's cash and ticket collections, to promptly investigate all manner of frauds and depredations on, and malicious acts against railways. I OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. $ $ Section 150. Estimates furnished for checking trains on being ad- vised of the number of conductors, how many cars, exclu- sive of sleepers, to the different trains, and the number of checks desired on each conductor. I also have in my ser- vice Engineers, Firemen, Conductors, Brakemen, Section- men, etc., etc., for use in investigating dishonesties, dis- affections, etc. of employes. NOTE:-Quite a number of sleeping car conductors and porters are constantly employed in two capacities, namely as such and also as detectives, mingling with the other regular employes and sending daily reports to the Sleep- ing Car Companies and the Detective Agency as well. The same holds good with train conductors and other kinds of railway employes. Those who belong to the different orders as O. R. C., K. of L., B. of R. E. and B. of L. F., etc., who are willing to turn traitors to their labor organizations are at a premium at the Detective Agency. See pages 175-179; Brotherhood of L. E. and L. F. harrassed by Detectives. RES ADJUDICATA ET RIGMAROLATA. (RED TAPE AND OFFICIALISM.) куру "So let us, lest the bear defendant (railway employe) And plaintive dog (Spotter) should make an end on't, Do strive and toil with writs of error, Reverse of judgment and demurrer To let them breathe awhile and then Cry whoop! And set them on again.” HUDIBRAS. > • Yo * " $ ** 78 } JUDAS EXPOSED, PUBLIC OPINION. VOX POPULI FOR THE CONDUCTOR. It is a popular idea that Railroad officials ought not to go outside of the material evidence when cases are brought up before them through so-called reports of observations by detectives, and when there is any doubt, should give their employes the benefit of it. Popular ideas are apt to be right, and in the wake of this one I am content to follow. In cases where no nice questions of fact or law are in- volved, the popular mind jumps to better conclusions of, justice than any judge, jury or other assembly of men can reach by feeling the way. The larger the deliberative assembly the less apt is it to be just, for no sooner does it begin to enquire than it begins to debate, and no sooner does it begin to debate what sometimes is scarcely debatable than it divides and takes sides. Then passion, prejudice, and pride of opinion come in to obstruct deliberation. A thing will seem just because conceit or a spirit of op- position would have it so. The popular mind reaches its judgments without this friction and resentment of discus- sion. For however there may exist the same passions and prejudices among the people at large as serve to distract an assembly of people, there is no pride of opinion with the unassembled multitude, and passion and prejudice play but small part in its quiet council chambers. There is just that sufficient contact of mind with mind without 、 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 79 蕭 ​the heat that warps the individual reason. The multitude gravitates to a conclusion in matter of common justice. } That is to say it forms judgment naturally without any purpose of doing so. In the process every individual is assisted by every other without either being conscious of getting the benefit of the thought of any other. Pride and obstinacy have nothing to do with the case. A judge goes to work to do justice as a task and is necessarily more or less artificial and opinionative and crotchety and even selfish in the work-selfish in the sense of having undue regard of what people will say of him in the matter. All this holds truer with a jury and truer still with a legislative or other deliberative assembly. But the quality of justice like that of mercy is not so strained. How shall you know what the popular idea or mind is? A vote does not always index it. But though there is no other way of ascertaining it, it often happens that nothing is better known, vote or no vote. It is caught up from the speech of the people, not so much from anything that anybody says as from innumerable little hints, humors, doubts, dissents, nods, negations and flashes of silence. The popular idea is in the air. Observation can no more escape it than the weather-vane can dispute the wind. The voice of the people is for the conductor and against the spotter, generally. 80 JUDAS EXPOSED, } ~ 1 } A RAILROAD OFFICIAL'S DISPOSITION OF ONE CASE. THREE SPOTTERS AGAINST CONDUCTOR NOAH VINEYARD. The defendant is charged with being drunk by the volun- tary use of intoxicating liquors. The day of the alleged offence was the Fourth of July, between the stations of Riverside and Lakeview, and the place, as it is said, was the excursion train, No. 2, of which the conductor had charge. It appears that the train was considerably crowded with passengers, including many ladies; that the conduc- tor tended to his collections, such as fares and tickets, all right, as there were, of course, no dead-heads and no dead- beats on the train; that the conductor tended to his other train duties with efficiency and was on entire run about five hours. So far there is no controversy. On the part of the detective agency there are three witnesses called upon to support the charge made in their complaints as laid down in their written reports of ob- servation, and all of whom assert that they saw the con- ductor while he was on the train and were near him, and the three spotters say that they talked with him or at least exchanged words with him. Their testimony is sin- gularly concurrent touching his condition. It tends to show that he was boisterous, impudent, and incoherent in his speech; that he moved with an unsteady gait; staggered; that he was flushed and unnaturally red in the face; that his breath smelled of liquor, and smelled strongly, 1 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 81 that he was, in a word, drunk. The spotters say that they are not acquainted with defendant, have never seen him in the time past and are not familiar with his appear- ance when not under the influence of drink, and that they are not familiar with his ordinary walk and conversation. These witnesses are said by the detective agency to which they belong to be respectable, reputable men of theirs, and reliable; that one used to be a sexton of acknowledged piety, another a beer waiter and the third a dog catcher in his town, all admitted of intelligence and character. None of them have any quarrel with defendant, Conductor Vine- yard, so they say, and they unite in declaring themselves unconscious of anything that should bias their testimony. Clearly enough this makes out a prima facie case for the Detective Agency. To meet it two brakemen and three of the passengers that rode on said train were called by defendant Conduc- tor, not voluntary witnesses, but duly summoned by pro- cess. They are equally concurrent with the witnesses for the prosecution, but concur in testifying to a state of facts very opposite concerning defendant's condition. They as- sert that they were present on said excursion train and saw him off and on throughout the time covered by the De- tective Agency's testimony. They deliberately say that they talked with him and all of them that they saw and heard him talking with others; that they saw him walking about and tend to his duties, that his carriage was steady, his look natural and his speech decorous and not excep- tionally loud, that his breath was not alcoholic to their sense, though they were near enough to observe it if it had been, and were themselves in condition to observe it; that they noticed nothing unusual in defendant's appearance, and that in their opinion he was sober. All these witnesses ! 1 1 Ma 82 1 3 JUDAS EXPOSED, } T are respectable and reputable and the three passengers were prominent citizens at Lake View, admittedly of good stand- ing in the neigborhood. All of them too are acquainted with defendant and have been accustomed to see him on the street, on the trains and elsewhere, and they also add that they are not conscious of any bias. Such is the evidence. It is a serious case and the rule puts upon the Railroad Manager the burden of proof. The Railroad Manager must prove the guilt of the defendant Conductor beyond a reasonable doubt. Failing to do so, he is to be acquitted. Is is an aphorism of law that witnesses are to be weighed, not counted, and I am very apt to be influenced by this ancient wisdom. Sometimes and not seldom, there is in the witness, either patent or latent, such bias, prejudice, ignorance, weakness, swiftness, or other insensibility to the obligation of an oath, that his testimony must needs be taken with much allowance or set wholly aside. A score of witnesses of this class put into the scale may be thrown aloft by the word of one good man dropped into the other plate. But here the witnesses are neither swift nor unin- telligent, nor are they, as I discover, actuated by any cor- rupt or unworthy motive. It is indeed impossible not to infer from the evidence in general that there was at the place of the alleged offense, the train, a somewhat hilarious excursion party of whom were some of the persons who have here borne witness while the three detectives were not active participants, but the witnesses on both sides claiming to be conspicuous friends of temperance. Furthermore the witnesses seem to have an intelligent understanding of what constitutes drunkenness, as properly defined, whether legal or lexical. To be immoderately un- der the influence of strong drink; to be thereby noticeably demented and so physically incapacitated as to affect in a 1 } } 1 1 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. marked degree one's look, walk and deportment--this it is to be drunk and such appears to be the understanding by the witnesses of what the word means. That the Conduc- : tor, if he was drunk, was drunk by the voluutary use of in- toxicating liquor is not in dispute. Was he so drunk? The evidence as I see it and have endeavored to state it, raises in my mind not only a reasonable doubt, but involves me in absolute doubt and darkness. 83 The answer to the question whether Couductor Vine- yard on the Fourth of July, on excursion train No. 2, was drunk is enshrouded in impenetrable mystery. For aught I know he might have so been. For aught I know he had on that interesting occasion tasted not, touched not, hand- led not. If I were to draw an inference from what ap- peared to be Conductor Vineyard's tendency to wine, the Fourth of July, when arraigned on this complaint, I should think it not impossible that he might have been too far in his cups for a discreet exercise of his duties. But it is not for me to go outstde of the evidence in the case. I am to know only what I may, enlightened by the evidence mate- rial to the issue. Sitting in such light-the light of the mass of testimony here presented, I know not whether the witnesses for the detective agency falsify or speak truth. I know not whether the witnesses for the defence are perjur- ious or veracious. I know not whether the Conductor was intoxicated or sober. I know nothing about it, and know- ing nothing about it, the conductor is acquitted and the wit- nesses are dismissed from further attendance on the case. 1 1 ! 14 84 JUDAS EXPOSED, A LETTER OF APPRECIATION. JAMES FULLER, Vice-President and General Manger. 1 SIR: The undersigned herewith respectfully acknowl- edge that your decision in the above case growing out of the Conductor Vineyard affair has given unfeigned satisfaction A few more such stalwart to all right-minded people. blows, as occasion requires, against the unfairness of some detectives of that sort will have the most salutary effect. We all feel greatly strengthened in our sense of security. Appreciatively, your most obedient humble servants, TRUE AND FAITHFUL. ANOTHER. A Manager there was, Do Right his name, And some decisions he gave, He grew and grew and grew in fame, All liked him but the knave. JAMES FULLER, Esq., And when he takes his upward flight, To be there judged by one, He sure will know he has been right In seeing justice done. Vice-President and General Manager. SIR:-We hope you will please excuse the liberty we have taken in imposing this sketch on you, as we can but admire the true dignity with which you fill your high, hono- rable station. Truly your humble servants, CONDUCTORS. } } OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. A CONDUCTOR'S WIFE'S LETTER OF APPRECIA- JAMES FULLER, Esq., TION. 85 Manager of O. K. R. R. Co. SIR:-You are the honor and protection of our welfare. I desire to call down blessings on your head for the justice you have done, and more than I say it to you. The Lord in heaven will reward you for having such regards for my poor husband and for all of us here, though those that you have to punish may not feel it so, and if you do justice al- ways as you have done it yesterday, I can truly say you keep the golden rule-you know what I mean-with the Lord who said it: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Very gratefully, MRS. NOAH VINEYARD, A mother of seven little children. A DIFFERENT DISPOSITION OF A CASE BY A RAIL- ROAD OFFICIAL. C At his general headquarters a railroad manager was observing the anniversary of New Years' Day in contem- plations of the past as was implied by a bunch of papers on his desk, purporting to be detectives' reports, represent- ing bird's eye views of their doings for the last six months, when the general superintendent approached him with some intention to suggest what private conclusion he had drawn from the spotters' lists. The manager was about to let out some conductors on his road. The general superin- tendent moved for time to dig up a defence for his conduc- DE • * 1. $ + } 86 JUDAS EXPOSED, tors, presumed to be innocent but probably guilty. Granted. After a week he went again to the manager to defend those that were unfortunate, and the manager managed to say that somehow the evidence was so nicely balanced that he was in grave doubt whether the thing had been done in each case. Whereupon he exchanged whispers with his private secretary at his side and rallying from his quandary pro- nounced all the conductors guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The clerk at his side exchanged winks with me as if he should say, "Beat that if you can." LETTER OF DEPRECIATION. A GRUMBLING LETTER. { MR. FIREEMTOOQUICK, Manager, so-called, of the B. D. R. R. Co. You just keep on in the way you are going and see how long before you bring up against a pretty big stump. There was not as much justice in the way you decided those conductors' cases as in the end of my little finger. I don't expect you to see straight in such cases, because you soured against everybody, no matter if. they walk the bee-line night and day, but why you cannot do the fair thing between man and man is more than I can see. Give us a manager that is a manager, and that is what I say. A. CONDUCTOR, OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 87 DITTO. "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, The eternal years of God are her's. But error wounded writhes in pain, And dies among its worshippers." This is what the inspired poet wrote long ago. I am fully aware that all minds cannot see the same thing alike, but when you ponder again and reconsider, you will per- ceive that the truth which you crushed to the earth in the conductors' cases must arise again. At the same time I would not be understood as accusing you of intentional in- justice. I think on the other hand you aim to do right and generally do, but you sometimes falter. "To err is human." Respectfully, A PATIENT CONDUCTOR. APPLICATION FOR REINSTATEMENT. (BY HIS MOTHERIN-LAW.) f TO FIREEMQUICK ESQ., Manager of the Harlem & Goose Bay R. R. Co. SIR:-I think you did wrong to discharge my son-in- law from your railroad, who has been seven years in your service, as you have done. I know "to err is human." He would not have got into this trouble if he had not been drinking a little bit on his birthday, for he cannot stand much, and when he is not in liquor he is a good sober man as you ever found. All my neighbors will tell you this, 88 JUDAS EXPOSED, + } 弯 ​£ both ladies and gentlemen. I sit down now to write and ask you to reinstate him on your road as my daughter says Please send your document that is the true way to do it. of reinstatement soon without fail to MR. WILL U. NIBBLE, MR. SETTEMON, HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW. A SCHEME. RAVENSNEST, April 1, 1889. Gen. Supt. of the Tip Top R. R. Co. SIR: If you did but know it there is much complaint by stockholders against you for not overseeing your con- ductors more. I hear it said that it is because you cannot get the evidence, but how can this be when they are knock- ing down right along? If I was at liberty I could give you the names of some of them who are at it every day, but this is not my busi- ness, it is yours. If I know so many when it is not in my way to find out, why cannot you find evidence when that is your business? This is what the stockholders are asking and will ask. A DISINTERESTED PARTY. ANOTHER SCHEME. THINKHEVILLE, April 11, 1889. K Gen. Supt. of the Tip Top Railway Co. MY DEAR SIR:-If you will ride sometime over your road, not in a special car but in a rear seat of the smoker, OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 89 J and take a peep at some of your conductors, you may see enough going on any time the fore part of the night. I have tried it and did see some color-blindness. I am not a spotter and don't propose to meddle with what is not my business, but I give you this little information for your benefit, and for the sake of a good cause. I would be an evidence myself but I think I can do more by putting you on the right track in this quiet way. Very truly, A FRIEND. STREET RAILWAYS AND CABLE CAR COMPANIES. MOOREVILLE, April 1, 1889. President of the Bobtail Jigger Street Ry. Co. SIR-A hint from you to your manager, Will U. Lett- emrest, will be worth more than a dozen letters I might write. I find that writing to him is a waste of ink; still if he knew who it was that has been writing to him he might take more notice of it. Now if he wants to make a regular haul please let him apply to Gaukey Zeal's detective agency, the best insect exterminator I know of in this town. He ought to go to that as your conductors ought to have a shaking up soon. I don't give my name here for good rea- sons as you can understand, but you can depend on me as A STOCKHOLDER. OLLIE OLSON, Esq., NOTE: Mr. Ollie Olson, the president, was seen to take above letter to his manager, Will U. Lettemrest, and was shown in return a score of like rubbish from his waste basket, where he had consigned them; then they both be- f 1 $ 1 是​我 ​90 JUDAS EXPOSED, A gan to buzz in that significant undertone which betokens disrelish for battle; the president put his finger on those letters, looked at the style and handwriting, then the offi- cials looked at each other as if they should say "exactly." The letters being exactly alike, the letter scanners scooted out of their offices again. Alas for the spotter! whose plans divulged and his hopes dispelled, and when the saint came around next day, he was duly bounced. Bully! UNSOPHISICATED. I had examined a bunch of so-called detectives' reports of observation, purporting to be tests on the color-blind- ness of some of the clerks around my warehouses and freight depots and I decided at length to discharge two of them for being short in their accounts. The daddy of one of them paid the bill, saying he would not begrudge the money if his son was guilty. Told him he was. He said twelve men would not say so. Asked him whether he would think so if twelve men said so. Said he had not thought much of that. Told him he had better take the case to twelve men. "O, come along now" cried the (other) second clerk, "why do you stand blarneying with the superintendent and you know your son is up to it. Come along or he will discharge you too if you don't mind." Exeunt. , ONE REASON WHY SPOTTERS ARE EMPLOYED. A CANDID RAILROAD OFFICIAL Rendered a labored decision in a testing case in favor of the detective ageney. Defendant railroad employe went off OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE, 91 ! probably picking flaws in the decision. Another thing did on this evil day, marvelled that men should so contend over matters so small, and yet marvelled not, seeing that men are made up as they are, and are as they are made. An old and particular friend of mine, now a retired stock- holder, who had once served a number of years as a rail- road official, said to me yesterday that, but few of said cases involved a great deal to the corporation, and how we could engage these spotters in such business, he could not understand. Without seeming to know it, my friend was but part and parcel of the corporation he was criticizing; has no doubt several times during his former long term as a railroad official been in the same fix, and may be again, by dint of the same human nature, tomorrow. It is an old story, wondering why railroad officials should put on spot- ters. The astonished censors might as well wonder why people are born. Nothing so common as to affect a dislike for spotters. Yet what more common than to employ them, not one time in two in any rational hope of pecuniarily im- proving the interest thereby of the corporation, but with the loss often of dollars, time, sleep and friendship staring us in the face! Truth is, we like curiosity and excitement as much as politicians like law-making, and to my knowl- edge it would seem that the older the roads the more spot- ters abound, as if for the very purpose of fomenting among the employes misunderstandings and disputations to keep the spotters at it, nolens volens. For without them how could I know so thoroughly the whole business of my road, from the cross-marks of complaints to the conclusions of all matter. Besides there is another advantage already hinted at, if it be an advantage, and I guess it is-without the spotters I should not come into such absolute contact with the human nature which it is the prerogative and - 5- 賣 ​1 } 喜​频 ​92 JUDAS EXPOSED, special mission forsooth of a railroad manager to decry, fathom, analyze and adjudicate for and upon. It may be disagreeable, even offensive, repulsive, repellant, the prox- imity oftimes of these spotters, but out of it cometh in- struction, knowledge-nay, out of it cometh somewhat the bandage that blinds the sight and the nerve that steadies the arm of him who is a manager and who holds the scales. It is hazarded that this contiguity of the manager to the nature, his subordinates and the affairs he is to judge serves in some degree the office of judicial preparation. Possibly it enables him the better to look through nature up to na- ture's sovereign, and so better to temper judgment with its all essential quality-mercy. i TROUBLE AT ZEAL'S RAILROAD DETECTIVE OFFICE. DETECTIVE EMPLOYER'S SOLILOQUY. This has been a day of extraordinary experience. Three brawling railroaders, otherwise called rixatrices com- munes and their wives have held high carnival at the very foot, if not on the very top, of my throne of inquisition. Gladly would I transcribe to immortal leaves the scenes at the temple as they are fixed in my mind, that employers of detectives of all future ages might take warning how they summon to their bar of inquisition three unjustly fired railroaders at once. Futile as would be the attempt, I am deterred from it by another consideration. I shrink to en- { } OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 93 } tail obloquy upon a representative of inquisition, who, however he proved so unequal to the emergency of the hour, strove with a high sense of duty and with whatever power in him lay, to preserve unsullied the ermine he hap- pened so unworthily to wear. Yet I cannot but feel it due for truth to record here my conviction that no detective manager can take in hand at one and the same time three, discharged railroaders with their three brawling women, withont incurring imminent risk of getting the worst of it and having his dignity torn, as it were, into infinitesimal shreds. In vain do I look around me in the gathering of. these evening shades for a vestige of the decorum, gravity,, and fulness of aspect of which I seemed possessed in the morning. Even the single item of authority I seem to be utterly divested of. Did I not cry out at the top of my voice, "Sit down you wenches-peace, be still!" and did they not rise up before my office staff, and with clenched fists and defiance in their eyes, bawl out, "We have seen bigger spotters than you and don't care a pig-tail for the whole boodle of ye!!" and did not those railroad brawlers too, rise up in a chorus and brawl, led on by their prima donnas of insolence and temerity? Punish them for in- sult? As if after such a scene within my office, there was any saving of the high pedestal of a boss-inquisitor's dig- nity! Non sum qualis eram. Alas! I have too often felt before that life is but a battle. When I attained to the eminence, which a yesterday ago I seemed securely to hold, I thought it might be otherwise. I was thinking that for me at least life might henceforth be a joy, a re- pose, an unquestioned holding of the fort of honor. The ruin about me to-night of all that I held so dear, but too truly revives the sorrowful belief and sad, sad fact, "Life is but a hard battle to a a detective.” F ◊ Į Į JUDAS EXPOSED, 94 I / AN INNOCENT RAILROAD-MAN'S MISSIVE TO THE DETECTIVE AGENCY. To MR. ZEAL, Proprietor detective agency at Saint Louis. SIR:-If you can imagine all sensible and fair-minded people making up faces of disgust at you, then you will know what you pass for as a detective in the railroad community. You may not hear it talked of and think it is not talked of, but you will find out your mistake by and by; it is a long road that has no turning. Your day will come around soon and we are the chaps that will tell you your story and not your darned spotters who are telling more lies than the rest of us; they say you do a good deal of private lying-how is that? AN INJURED RAILROAD MAN. THE DETECTIVE AGENCY'S PRIVATE LETTER TO A RAILROAD MANAGER. To MR. JAMES AINSLEE, General Manager of the Northbound Railway Co. DEAR SIR:-Some of the conductors that will be brought before you tomorrow from the Farragut division are old offenders and bad ones at that as their record at this office shows. It is hoped that they will not be let off with a sus- pension (as we hear they have some influence) but will be hoisted off the road and where they will not soon be at it again. This is what our office desires to see done and will thank the manager for doing it. Very respectfully, ZEAL, Proprietor of detective agency at St. Louis. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 95 { LETTER OF EX-CONDUCTOR B. OF NORTHBOUND RY. CO., TO DETECTIVE AGENCY. MISER SULLIVAN.—— Boss prevaricator of a (snide) detective agency. If you flatter yourself you have heard the last of that muddy Farragut case you are mightily mistaken. Because I saw fit to take my undeserved discharge, probably you think that this penalty was right, but I am remembering it all the same and am on your track, you better bet. CONDUCTOR B. A RAILROAD EMPLOYE TO HIS SUPERINTENDENT. MR. HOB-NOB.- Superintendent Wash. division Northbound Railroad Co. What you said before witnesses last Friday when you handed me my discharge was a slur upon my good name and a shame on justice and you know it. You had no right to be so over-severe to an innocent man. You have ruined my honest reputation and when your trial in court takes place you will see what's right. A MARTYR. WHAT MEANS THIS? O MR. NICODEMUS:- General Manager of the Goose Bay Railroad Co. SIR-I regret to say that an impression prevails that the management of your road is not quite so earnest as it should be in enforcing order and discipline and punish the offenders. I can confidently assure you that the utmost 1 96 JUDAS EXPOSED, efforts of the management in suppressing all vagaries of employes on your road will be heartily sustained by the public. A MORAL STOCKHOLDER. A PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL WRITES TO THE DETEC- TIVE AGENCY. MISER SULLIVAN :- Corporal of Zeal's detective agency. but I am mis- SIR-I believed you had some little reputation as a de- tective before you undertook that last job, taken or else liquor has turned your head. The case you tried to make out against my wife would not hold water with the Blackstone of a common blacksmith shop, and you can't cover it up with your blarney either. Did you hob-nob with her? You will find it out when the case comes up in court and don't you forget it, and I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet either. Yours truly, INFELICTY. PEOPLE INDIGNANT AGAINST RAILROAD MANA- GER FOR EMPLOYING CHINESE. RICHARD COOLIE, Esq.:- Manager of the Oldtime & Cabbage Railroad Co. DEAR SIR:-We suppose you are old enough and wise enough to know that you will be the last man to know what the people will say of your doings as a manager. We can tell you friendly, that they will have their eyes upon you pretty sharp as a manager if you twist your mind to sym- OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 97 ¿ pathize with and please the Chinese, whom you employ on your road, while poor and needy white folks are left with- out work and to starve. You will find the public is not going to favor your road in particular, but all your spotters with their snide U. S. deputy marshal commission obtained by fraud, cannot keep those darling mongolians on in the rightful places of poor and starving white men. I believe in some freedom in this free country of ours and you will find that mongolian invasion is not going to be crowded down the throats of the people of this state without a fight and an opposition that will tell in the long run. VOICE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. DETECTIVE AGENCY'S LETTER TO A RAILROAD PRESIDENT. A LETTER OF THANKS COUPLED WITH A NEW BAIT. HON. WADDINGTON, Esq. :- President of the Mexican Centre Railroad Co., Boston, Mass. RESPECTED SIR:-Your laudable efforts in establishing a routine of order and discipline on your railroad, in which we feel honored to have been instrumental, were, as we have learned, fully appreciated by the well disposed directors of your road. Allow us to congratulate you. The criticisms you may hear in regard to your official conduct we hope and trust will not slacken your zeal. You are earning the good opinion of your stockholders and of all good people, 98 JUDAS EXPOSED, and that is, what we hope and trust, your ambition, and doubt not that it is. Respectfully and gratefully yours, ZEAL. NOTE: On this occasion the general superintendent and 28 conductors were requested to resign on the M. C. Railway. THE ASSAULT. An ordinary case of assault today was made extraor- dinarily interesting to the spectators, partly by the brake- man's friend, partly by the brakeman himself, and partly by the railway superintendent. A scene in a superinten- dent's office cannot be transferred to canvass and as little can it be to paper. The attempt is sometimes made and a feeble attempt I may here make. The brakeman's friend in opening the case observed that the brakeman was a very industrious, peaceable and inoffensive man of Athol in No- Man's-Land, possessed of a mild disposition, and wholly incapable of the rudeneas and violence imputed to him by the detective in his testimony; and these things he doubted not would appear to the superintendent as well from the brakeman as other witnesses he should call. Two witnesses were heard, though they did not fully confirm the pleasant impressions left by the opening, yet tended that way. Witness No. 2 was the mild-mannered brakeman himself, who, as he took the stand, glanced around with a look of some impatience. Omitting preliminaries and the inevit- able irrelevancies and superfluities and sinuosities which 1 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 99 make part of such literature, the examination may be re- ported as follows: B's. friend-Now braky, I want you to tell the truth about this matter. Did you kick the detective as he says you did? Brakeman-Kick him! No, not a d-d bit of it. B's. friend-Well, keep quiet, don't get excited. You didn't kick him; did you push him? Brakeman-Push him! By G-d, I guess I did and if I had had a couplin' pin, I'd brained him, d—n me if I wouldn't. Superintendent-Beware, sir, of your profanity! (Sternly.) B's. friend-You pushed him; well, how hard did you push him? are. Brakeman-Pushed him so that he went out of the caboose headforemost, and I wish 't 'ad broke his d-d neck (gesticulating frantically). Superintendent-Hold, sir, do you know where you Brakeman-Yes, I guess I do, and by G-d (with el- ectric speed) I'll carry this case before twelve men-if a man can't defend himself against a spotter, coming into his own caboose to rob him out his job when he ain't do- ing wrong, and- Superintendent-This case is suspended until this af- ternoon. (Impressive silence in the office during which time the superintendent puts on his hat and eyes the now seated brakeman.) B's. friend-Mr. Superintendent, it will be extremely inconvenient for me to be here this afternoon; I have a very special appointment elsewhere. If you could possibly + 1 + JUDAS EXPOSED, overlook for the time my friend's indiscretion, which, I grant, is very great indeed, I think he may now so see his situation as to conduct himself with propriety. I should hope, if you please, that he might be tried further now. Superintendent softens and brakeman takes the stand and undergoes a brief cross-questioning, but not without tokens of an irascibility which it was obvious he was with- out power to suppress. Nevertheless his friend proceeded with the utmost sang froid to argue that his client could not be guilty of assault-that allowing he pushed the de- tective at all, which was doubtful, his act was only moliter manus imposuit (a soft hand touch) which the law justified in the owner of premises as against a trespasser, and so forth.- } Ten days' suspension. 100 THE BRAKEMAN'S COMPLIMENTS. That crack you got last night hurt you some I reckon, but the next one will peel you better. I am on your track, my boy, and you better make your will if you haint. I re- fer you to the superintendent to make it out. BLOOD. A CONDUCTOR'S EPISTLE. BRAINERD, April 1, 1889. MR. SPOTTER: I hear you call yourself smart on roads, and others say you are too; if you come back some night and find ? OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 101 £ your barn burned down and house too, I think you'll find you went one road too many. I give you this to chew on NIGHT OWL. A SECTION FOREMAN'S THREAT. } A TIP. RANGER, Texas, April 1, 1889. You cowardly sneak, the complaint you made to the railroad company against me was for malice and nothing else. The superintendent had to let me stay for there was no evidence and he said it; this made you liable for mali- cious prosecution according to law. I should go for you under this head but you ain't worth a dam cent, and I am told it's no use to sue a beggar and catch a louse, and I guess we should catch lice enough if we caught you, but if we don't catch you we will bring you down at long range, and don't you forget it. REVOLVER. : ROUND HOUSE, Bonham, April 1. MR. SIRRR. You got the idea your acquaintance with the master mechanic will save you from great reproach; now it won't do no such thing. He's not big enough for which I know now. He's accused some of them and you bet if he does me, I come up with you some, and with him some, if he tries to save you. I blackguard him much and you some, 102 JUDAS EXPOSED, i I know. I keep Cayenne pepper and some other thing, you hear me, you see SLUGGER. WAR PAINT. Not long ago an irate conductor threw at a spotter, who was "fooling" on his train, a knife, cutting the latter's foot. Later on he let fly his punch that brought a bump on the spotter's head. The next day, for a third offence of fooling, he hurled a poker, that hit, near the left eye, an- other spotter, and made a smart little wound. The last hit was one too many for the superintendent's forbearance and today the impetuous missile-flinger was impleaded and pleaded guilty. His impetuosity and penitence were deemed mitigatory, and the penalty was a week's suspension and a lecture. The conductor was afterwards heard to say, that he would have rather been discharged and be done with it. So much for casting pearls before swine. A SECTION LABORER'S REGARDS. MISTER: Did you ever hear of blood and thunder, as you will, you better believe, you bet. PICK AND SHOVEL OF RAILROAD TRACK. A RAILROAD MANAGER ON GUESS-WORK. Three detectives, with their report of observation, and one conductor and two brakemen at my office. After the OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 103 conductor had been called to account he called the observa- tions a pack of lies, as he espied, or thought he did, sun- dry defects in the phraseological bags containing the ob- servation. He suggested that the bag held nothing but lies, and was insufficient in point of texture to hold a case. The detectives picked these flaws and intimated that the legs of the case were dangling through the woof and warp of the bag. Conductor replied that the case had no legs to dangle, much less to stand upon. Here I shook my head and signified my willingness to hear proper discussion touching the bag, but could not indulge the gentlemen in insinuations, that a case had legs, however that might be implied by the vulgarism, sometimes heard in legal debatə of a "case going on all fours." Whereupon forensic pro- priety was resumed and discussion bearing on the bag issue was had on the one side and the other. Arguments were plied pro and con, hairs were split and webs of finesse were spun and woven, 'till my head became confused, perplexed and profoundly ignorant whether law, as Blackstone saith, be the perfection of reason, or as some irreverently as- sert, the perfection of nonsense. For the purpose of determining this question with some degree of certainty I took into my possession the aforesaid bag, and all the parties friendly and hostile there- to, and adjourned proceedings to the next day. The next day has come and the same parties are before me, when I take up this bag, which contained a case of prodigious swearing. The complaint against the conduc- tor for conduct which the detectives aver had repeatedly been carried to such limit that something in the name of de- cency must be done. The conduct described to be the presence of the accused conductor about the front door of the first, or smoking car, and assailing at divers times " 104 JUDAS EXPOSED, I -- a passenger there with epithets the most opprobrious and charges the most atrocious, and otherwise running on in strains and streams that might easily win the first prize in the school of ribaldry. The three detectives take the stand and swear that such was the conduct of the conductor in the broad sun- light of Sunday last, that the torrent of conductor's abuse was loudly continued for some fifteen minutes and that thereby were called together men, women and children from all the cars. The conductor, his brakeman and his flagman take the stand and swear this accusatory tale is all a monstrous lie, and that the conductor called no names, hurled no charges, used no dirty speech, indeed scarcely spoke, and that no passengers of the other cars of the train assembled, at- tracted by what he did or said, or what anybody else did or said. Here were three witnesses swearing positively to a state of facts, and three witnesses, on the same ground, in the smoker, at the same time, swearing to a state of things wholly different. On either side the testimony so lay to- gether in parallel lines that to believe one or the other of the six witnesses was to believe that three out of the six were guilty of deliberate perjury. It is not a slight thing to draw the line and say where is the turpitude. Only a little better than guess-work is it sometimes. Once I heard an old and eminent jurist of the state say, in private conversation, that in getting at many matters of law it was "a good deal guess-work." It is not less so in a railroad manager's office in getting at many matters of fact. Those who have listened at the door-rooms of juries, consulting in the still hours of night, as not a few anxious OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. * 105 attorneys have done, know pretty well how much juries guess at the law and the fact. So familiarly known is this guessing habit of juries that lawyers of long experience have said, they would as leave turn up a copper as take the verdict of a jury. But there was little need of guess-work today. "Wit- nesses are to be weighed, not counted," says the law adage. "Testimony is like an arrow shot from a long-bow-the force of it depends upon the hand that draws it," said Dr. S. Johnson very aptly. Where the witnesses are evenly balanced in point of number, and the two stories are dia- metrically opposite, and the opportunities of observation were equal, perjury on one of the two sides is manifest. How can three or more witnesses take the stand one after another and perjuriously testify to a variety of things without the perjury manifesting itself in the look of their face, the pitch, tone, and temper of their voice, and that uneasiness of body and soul with which wilful falsehood af- flicts the falsifier. It is believed it cannot be done. Apart, therefore, from circumstances corroborating the detective's testimony, the perjury on the other side obviously rolled off their tongues and stood forth on their very eyeballs. GUESSER. A SPOTTER DRUNK. Yesterday was the day after St. Patrick's day. Con- sidering the general inebriety and obstreperosity whereof general rumor speaks, the harvesting of offenders proved conspicuously small; accounted for by a prevailing dis- position of the constabulary to allow revels and rollics on 106 JUDAS EXPOSED, anniversary of this patron saint. Well, it undoubtedly is well to lean always to the side of liberty and a little more indulgently in time of holidays; otherwise politicians might take alarm lest the state in the next election may re- ceive detriment. Accordingly the non action yesterday of the police was but a piece of deference to pretty well-known public sentiment. One case only seemed to grow directly out of the cele- bration-that of a spotter picked up drunk in the night by the wayside. His story was that in celebrating he "took a sip too many-some whiskey on top of beer." His name was ascertained to be Miser Sullivan, nick-named "the Jew," who used to sell territory for clothes wringers. He was without a cent in his pocket. The usual single-drunk fine was imposed, which a woman, in whose shop he had loi- tered, paid and he went his way. After his departure there was a sound that certain parties, of which the woman was one, had been keeping him boozy, the better to wring out of him a good clothes wringer contract. Hence the wom- an's benevolence. A RAILROAD OFFICIAL ON HIS METTLE. Always around the official domain of a manager's office is there some busybody whose special mission and ma- lignity it seems to be to hector and harrass the good man- ager and his staff. Unless the manager be of a lofty mind and philosophic turn, combining also with these qualities a respectable streak of combative independence, it is possible that the busybody would drive the manager and his parti- cular friends all stark mad. Most often this personage is a chronic place seeker who aforetime has been in some railroad OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 107 1 employment and in the squabble with spotters or by some fit of official disgust was thrown up high and dry upon the strand, where no subsequent tide of appointment or in- fluence has reached to set him afloat. He it is, who, with a smattering of experience, a railroad dialect, a spirit of wormwood and a respectability, forsooth, not wholly dis- tinct, goes round among us railroad people spargere voces in vulgum ambignas, backbiting the manager, sneering at his officers, tampering and condoling with hangers-on, and groaning aloud that such things should be and not stir Rome to rise in arms. Nor does this blatherskite and reformer lack of hearers. He never, to be sure, gets a majority with him, nor often a good-sized faction; otherwise he might get again into office. But he gets a small audience here and there, gives impetus now and then to a lie or scandal, and man- ages perchance to roll the flake of a mistake into a sizable snowball of malfeasance, inasmuch that Messrs. A. B. and C. stop by the wayside and remark, "See that snowball?'' He is the ex-superintendent, the ex-master mechanic, the ex-claim agent, is a mischief maker, to be plain about it, he is a nuisance. A thorn he is in the side of the rogue- catching detective, and a miserable mosquito diurnally buzzing about the ears of the honorable manager. Of course everybody exclaims, "Who minds what that fellow says?" Nobody minds much, but how many like to quote him to serve some sly little purpose as hitting the manager or persons of his supposed body-guard. How curious human nature now and then will prompt a stalwart friend to tell the manager what Mr. Bittergall says, and add straight way, "that's Bittergall, of course. Wherefore tell it if it was Bittergall? Alas! Even the stalwart friend has his moments of weakness. The man- "" 108 JUDAS EXPOSED, A ager knows it. He knows, after much trial of human kind, that all are of one blood, that the steadiest are very variable, and few are so sweet and saint-like as not to enjoy the experiment of pin-pricking a manager. ( THE SPOTTER ON A JAMBOUREE. The soi-distant detective left the depot with little or no money about him and went off with a party of spotters to an evil house in an evil quarter in a neighboring street. The spotters in their revelry had a row, and one of the num- ber returned to the train and in his drink and ire let out the nature of his business. Upon this the indignant trainmen to whom said business was of household knowledge, up- braided him, and he, high in liquor, stormed as an injured spy, calling the trainmen opprobrious epithets, and other airs of injury put on. Words ran higher and higher, abuse followed abuse, till at length the spotter was induced to leave the depot and return to his neighboring hotel. Thither he went to unfold what had occurred and to lay off his uneasy mask of deception. Since that break the spotter promised to reform and lead a more respectable life, which promises have been made only to be broken. The spotter's story, more than any similar one I have before heard, betrayed a fire of soul that seemed capable of suicide, homicide, or any other soul-burning act of des- peration. If this oat-sowing scion of Sleuth thinketh he standeth, let him take heed lest he fall. The superintendent at the depot brought this case to the notice of the superintendent of the detective agency, when the latter afterwards brought with him an appealing 1 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. letter from a "prominent citizen of the place" setting forth that the young man (the spotter) had heretofore been "ex- emplary," that his parents were poor but respectable, and that if a light penalty upon him could be imposed, perhaps the ends of justice might be satisfied, as the young man appeared to be deeply penitential for his disturbance. The appeal penetrated, the railroad superintendent knowing the prominent citizen, and not doubting that he was a better judge than himself. The result of course would have been different had it not been for weak eyes. THE TRACER. A FREIGHT AGENT'S STORY. 109 Last night between nine and ten o'clock my wife was reading aloud to me from "Homo Sum," and I was in a martyr mood from a fresh hearing of some of the exalted sentiments of Paulus. Just as I had extinguished the lamp-light and I was in the act of retiring, with these lines upon my lips: How sweet when labors close, To gather round the aching breast The curtain of repose; To stretch our limbs and lay our head Upon our own delightful bed, Just as I was so doing and so musing there was a rap at my back door. I went to the window, and opening it about an inch a colloquy ensued, which according to the best of my recollection and belief with the party outside was: "Who's there?" "It's me; Tim Hawkshaw, the tracer." "What do you want?" ཀ My £ 1 望 ​110 JUDAS EXPOSED, 1 1 " "" "Want to see you." "What for?" "Very important business." W I opened my back door and the man entered in a high degree of excitement, and I had a prolonged interview with him. For the first few minutes from what could be gleaned out of his talk, it came over me that a great tragedy had been enacted and that my work of the morrow would be of no inconsiderable magnitude, especially did it so seem when my guest produced from the depths of his capacious pocket a carnal weapon of the similitude of revolvers and simul- taneously declared it loaded; and declared that but for his prowess in staying the arm of a certain audacious assail- ant, seemingly intent on pilfering freight, my guest, who then and there stood before me, would have been three hours or so ago a dead man! Verily, the particular hairs of my head began to stand on end, and it was with diffi- culty I could sufficiently collect myself to take, much less examine, the deadly weapon. A recollection, however, of the serenity of Paulus under exciting circumstances calmed me somewhat, and I proceeded to an inspection of the arm. I found that the chambers of it were empty, that it was without a hammer, without a trigger, and without-well a lock; would not revolve, and, considering the rust that possessed it, probably had not revolved for a long time. The inspection over, I resumed colloquial relations with my guest and answered sundry questions, among others, "Isn't it a great crime to aim such a thing at any man?" "If any man has a right to carry a peestol and say he shoot ?" "If any man carry a peestol and say he shoot, might not I twitch it away, if I smart anoof, by gar!" OPE These, indeed, were "sockdologers" and it required:no slight skill to parry them. Being considered authority and OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 111 on my own premises gave me some advantage, and the pointed interrogatories did less execution than they other- wise might. Still with the "peestol" there as witness, it was hard not to admit that any man who might essay to shoot with it would be guilty of a criminal extravagance. Driven to this extremity I took refuge in a quasi judicial fortress which I now proudly hold. I suggested to the tracer that, as an act of prudence, he leave the dangerous weapon in possessione curiae, lest in the event of the owner thereof making me a polite call, a sense of official obligation should constrain the issuance of a warrant for larceny of the said "peestol." The proposition was gracefully assented to, the spotter took cordial leave, and, together with my better half, I advanced through another chapter of "Homo Sum." # CONDUCTORS' HONESTY. The spotters had cleared the track of all the collectors on the Santa Fake railroad company. They had tested said road for the last six months since the occurrence just mentioned as well as that of a leased line of the former, the Atlantic & Peaceable railroad. Spotters' so-called re- ports of observations about appearances and continuances, and allowances conditioned upon contingencies, to which may be added the answering of many questions put by the persecuted conductors who come to their managers or gene- ral superintendents without any opposing evidence ready in juxtaposition, and without appearing to dream that the manager cannot be at the same time their judge and attor- ney. The poor innocents, for by an overwhelming ma- # 1 112 JUDAS EXPOSED, jority they are innocent, seeing the manager looking aus- tere, persist in thinking that he was full of wrath when he employed spotters, and that he had summoned them (the conductors) to answer to him and are amazed when he tells them he knows nothing about their cases, and when he further tells them that they will probably have to find witnesses or evidence in rebuttal to enable them to answer the reports of observation of somebody who does know about it, they are horrified and out of all manner of patience with their company. This is one of the trials of a railroad official. It is his hard fate to be continually teaching ignorance, (for which purpose forsooth, I must frankly say, in a great measure this volume has been written), and making ex- planations, and so far is he from getting thanks for it that he is cruelly suspected of trying to impose upon honest em- ployes by being in league with spotters. There is a class of people traditionally presumed dishonest-the conduc- tors. I may as well record here as anywhere else my pro- test against the popular idea, which takes form so often in jest and not seldom in speech more serious, that conduc- tors as a class are inclined to delinquency more than any other class. Truth is that conductors are as upright, trust- worthy and conscientious as any other set of people on the face of the globe. Moralists resort to penitentiary statis- tics when they would make a point against any particular class of people. The statistical collocation is not at hand but it may be ventured that the percentage of railroad men to be found in penitentiaries is less than that of any other profession and less than that of any corresponding number of persons the world over. Conductors do right for policy sake if for nothing more, because they see so much more clearly what policy demands. No man better than the OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 113 conductor knows that honesty is the best policy, and no man is more likely to observe it. Rascals among conduc- tors are found, but it is due to simple truth that no pro- fession is less spotted. The instances are rare in which conductors are not more honest than their spotters, and spotters, I say positively, represent the scum of the world's people of every name and condition. HOLIDAYS. (A RAILWAY MANAGER'S REVERIE.) A bright, serene holiday, the air soft, the sky all azure, the trees all beginning to burst, and the placid surface of the railroad official's mind unvexed by the prow of a soli- tary case of a spotter's report of observation. Already three weeks without one, and without an overture for one, which is hintful of the millenium as a possibility. It is a longer halt than before known in many years. What may be the explanation of this arms grounding by the spotters? Are they simply spitting on their hands for a fresh take-hold or would they beat their peace-piercing spears into prun- ing hooks. Is it because of the good times that satan finds no mischief for idle hands to do, or is it that mischief is at work still as ever and merely three weeks have elapsed without any revelation of it? Weak eyes enough but still no reports. Still none and still none, an unusual unprece- dented dearth! So long a truce makes it look more as if their occupation was given up than that the rogues were spitting on their hands. Now four weeks without a report of a spot- 114 JUDAS EXPOSED, 盆 ​ter. Any official that can show this blank during testing, in striking contrast with any corresponding interval in a term of years, may either boast that he has accomplished somewhat in the line of reform, or challenge other in- fluences to show cause why he should not have judgment in his favor. Presumably I am entitled to the goblet and until some party appears to contest the matter, will take the prize and put it upon its mantel shelf. SENSATION IN A SLEEPING CAR. SCENE: A COURT ROOM. Few assemblies exceed in gaping curiosity the crowd that oft attends in the session of a court. If the case be one that partakes of the tragic or savors of the lewd, and has been duly advertised by rumor, how sure it is to draw a "house." If the tragic alone, the respectable are less coy in making part of the spectators; if of the lewd the at- traction is too strong to restrain always the respectable. In the latter case one is always inclined to commiserate the better dressed and cleaner shaved auditors, whose curiosity has so got the start of their judgment. Their shame- facedness contrasts so sharply with the abashed look and bearing of their co-occupants of the benches that a sensa- tion of profound pity is sometimes excited in the breast of the observer. The sly mannner in which they slink to a seat or hang on the verges of the throng, the indifference of the proccedings, which they affect at the most interest- ing stages thereof, and the simulated disgust with which OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 115 } they retire from the scene at the drop of the curtain are things altogether calculated to awaken in their behalf very sympathetic emotions. On the other hand these tender sentiments are far less aroused toward the more familiar habitues of the dingy and air-dense court room. Their equipoise is so manifest that any bestowal of sympathy upon them would be sweet- ness wasted on desert air. They beg no pardon and dis- semble not the weakness flesh is heir to as they stretch necks and auricularly expand. Not they. Still less do they disguise appreciation of the exceptional excellencies of the entertainment by any turning away of the head, any yawn as of somnolency or other token of spectatorial in- attention. To the credit of their sincerity be it spoken they lean intently forward in the benches or stand tiptoe behind them, put hands to their ears, exchange significant glances and would now and then cry "Hear," "Hear," and perchance stamp with their boots but for the propriety of the place, which they hold in great reverence. In short the orators are rare who can keep an audience so intent as a smutty case in court. "" What does all this argue? That mankind are more attracted to exhibitions of the tragical and low than to things intellectual and higher? It is at least so with part of genus homo and that not a small part. If it be con- sidered how much larger a portion than do would give will- ing audience to what is merely bloody and sensuous, if not restrained by a sense of shame, we are driven to the con- clusion that the noble in man is not so dominant over the base as not to afford a wide field for the preacher in the best of communities. Many instances I recall of men who could well enough have attended, staying away from a lewd case in court and 116. JUDAS EXPOSED, 羌 ​thi tuyển afterward seeking information as to all the particulare, both as relating to the case and the crowd in attendance. When such men have sometimes been asked "why didn't you come in and hear the case ?" the reply has been "Oh, well, I thought I wouldn't be seen there, but would like to know simply how it came out" or words to that effect. That is to say "I was ashamed to be in the crowd but am not ashamed to inquire what the crowd there heard." it not easier to respect the crowd than the persons who are thus too respectable to be of it? Is The case was squashed on account of weak eyes, or the influence brought to bear by the sleeping car company in hushing matters up. THE POLITE NEWS AGENT (BUTCHER.) A case! which the superintendent very quickly if not ravenously, after his long fast devoured-disposed of. A very refreshing case too, it was independently of its arrival after so protracted a season of drouth. The one accused by spotters was a news agent and the embodiment of politeness. He stood up erect and said "Guilty" with a smile and a bow; and when he heard his reprimand, he politely stepped forward and cheerfully paid the superintendent his respects and begging his par- don, and even expressed a lively sense of gratitude for the privilege. He then voluntarily and emphatically protested that he should never drink and disturb the peace again on the train but dutifully pursue his vocation as a news agent and religiously husband all his resources. So saying he withdrew from the superintendent's office also with a polite OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 117 bow and with other such manifestations of propriety and civility as should make him a model for convicts in all time to come. Hereafter let it not be said that a news agent is only a ninth part of a railroad man. Here was a news agent every inch a railroad man, and it may well be doubted if ever I shall look upon his like again. THE FORTUNATE SECTION LABORER. If sudden death be good fortune the section man was fortunate whose body I saw to-day. He was one of a gang of twelve men repairing a railway track near where the road crosses a highway, and at a point where the road makes a sharp curve. As the express passenger train ap- proached, going at the rate of forty miles an hour, it sounded the usual whistle before reaching the crossing. The men all quit their work and stepped aside, save this man. Seeing him midway of the track still prying with his iron bar at a spike in a sleeper, his back to the approaching train, the men shouted and as they shouted, the engine, now in full sight sounded the alarm whistle. He appeared to hear neither the shouting nor the whistling (so ran the testimony) except as he turned his head just ere the engine struck, and tore and threw him into fragments along the track. So he died! What is singular, all the testimony went to show that he was of sound mind, sound body, of good habits, and of good repute. He had appeared natu- ral and worked as usual during the morning hours and his act, in thus sticking to his work was to his co-workers a great mystery. He was an Irishman, thirty years old, married, and so far as known without relatives in the coun- ; 118 JUDAS EXPOSED, 3. try. Till he began work on the road a fortnight ago, he was a stranger to the gang. Had the man for some cause concluded that he would no longer live? KISSES. (ON A SLEEPING CAR.) A sleeping car conductor presumed to break the sacred rules and regulations laid down by his office, and besides tending to his regular occupation, plied the vocation of peddling opals on the sleeper without a license. The con- sequences of this very considerable crime he might have escaped, as do many who commit the like without the com- pany profitting thereby. But not content with peddling opals without a license, this wooden nutmeg peddler auda- ciously, flagitiously, and unceremoniously, presumed to peddle without a license what no man ought ever expect so to peddle with impunity. He entered the section of a young married couple, to whom was born but a few months ago a babe. The father of the hopeful offspring was absent in a day coach at the forward part of the train engrossed in the pastime of smoking. But the mother was there and the babe was, and it (the babe) this sleeping car conductor, when he found the mother did not take to his opals, straight- way began to fondle and admire, saying that he was ever so fond of children, and was one of those unfortunate men who had never himself had one. Though he had married two wives and was getting along in years, yet was he child- OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 119 less and unhappy and he kissed the baby. And from kiss- ing the baby he digressed to remarking sweet things to and patting the mamma, and simultaneously with the last act he implanted an unlicensed kiss upon the young matron's cheek. Then there was hurrying to and fro, and then was the peddling of opals destined to exposure in the greater exposure of peddling what this sleeping car company never did, and, it is to be hoped never will license-kisses! Kisses, be it known are a contrabrand commodity "unless coupled" with the all essential condition of reciprocal tender pas- sion. The evidence failed to show the reciprocity, and ac- cordingly the kiss, however innocently inflicted, was ad- judged assault. The peddler of opals was also held to be an unlawful peddler thereof and the offense of the wooden nutmegian toward the afore named married couple entailed upon him altogether a fine of $11.30 by his superintendent and but for being the simple booby he seemed to be, his sudden love should have proved the loss of his caput (job.) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF GUILT. SUPERINTENDENT AND BRAKEMAN. "Drunk-guilty or not guilty ?" "Not guilty, but I suppose I might as well say I was "Was what?" "Was drunk.” "Pray do not say so unless you were. "I guess it's the easiest way out of it." "Out of what?" "The scrape the spotters got me into." " "" 120 JUDAS EXPOSED, + 1 x7 £ } "What scrape?" "Why, they've got me in here." "What for?" "They surely reported me drunk." "What do you say?” "I guess they are not far from right." "Ten days lay-off.” } ON THE TRAIN. "Nor prancing steeds from cottage side, Have rolled with us away; But now and then we've ta’en a ride, Upon a summer day." THE RAILWAY CONDUCTOR-VOCATION. (SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW.) • Abiding as is the consciousness that within certain limits he is supreme in authority, constant as is the satis- faction that to him the traveling public look wisely or other- wise as the protector of their peace, pleasurable as are the emotions arising out of frequent visitations to lend charm and eclat to diverse occasions on his train by his presence and benediction, there is yet in the routine of the railway conductor a monotony, an ennui, which only the strong resolution and great fortitude with which nature has OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 121 endowed him can enable him to endure. A painful same- ness there is in the turbid waters of the conductor's sea as it ebbs and flows, and ruffles and sleeps, and breaks and foams with little variation, week after week, month after month and year after year odoriforously-in his craft near- ing and receding, running back and fro. Then the same old faces of the passengers on his route, though smiling and friendly and bringing tidings from their points, is tire- some as is the crowd on the trains, with the same dréss, slang, look and laughter. Still more wearisome is the treadmill toil of going through the same rigmarole, swing- ing doors, punching tickets, receiving and discharging car- goes, casting the same columns, folding and fumbling the same papers, spotting spotters, rendering the same reports and signing everlastingly the same old name, name, name, till one grows weary of his autograph and wishes that like many a wretch he wots of, he had an alias, or a lodge in some vast wilderness where no signature to sign was known or necessary. All this and much more, though he likes the road and from a boy has wantoned with its hazards, is wasting and perilous to the flesh and spirit of him when his view and exercise are circumscribed to the limits of a train. Yet as there is unity in diversity, so is there variety in monotony, and apart from occasional things such as excursion smash- ups or a manifest that opens up the dolphin of a daring tramp, that breaks here and there the monotony of his motion life, the conductor has a never failing source of refreshment and diversion. From town to town he comes and goes and is keenly alive to the independence of paying his fare. Nor is this all that serves to relieve the wear and tedium of his dittoism. It is some pastime to him as he journeys back and forth on the train to note the varieties 122 JUDAS EXPOSED, of the human family that do not seem to be born as the sparks fly upward, into those peculiar troubles of which it is his mission to take note. Enforced by impaired vision to total abstinence from reading the Daily on the train, he indulges as he is able in perusing the tone of human na- ture in the cars. Remembering that Knickerbocker had long ago told him that everybody was a volume of human nature, he cannot but rejoice every time he boards his train that he enters a library not made by hands, and though weak of eyes is permitted to turn over the leaves of the book and read the headlines, if not the entire contents. The headlines engraved upon his memory speak of earnest men breathing the breath of business; earnest women on shopping intent; gentry and fashion starting forth to pluck the sweets of travel, or returning laden with spoil; finely arrayed ladies devouring delicious stories; cheerful scho- lars with budgets of books, creeping not like snail, but speeding cityward to school; emigrants with expectation in their eye; troops of minstrels, dramatists, necromoncers, hornblowers, fiddlers and pipers with traveled looks, and stagy manners, leaking the last performance and snuffing the next, newsboys with their various rhetoric and elocu- tion; R. R. officials, always gentlemanly but never two in the same way; brakemen sturdy at the wheel and hopeful of promotion; the interesting mistakes of uneducated pas- sengers and educated; their unfeigned surprise that no- body told them ere they blundered; the strict observance of the posted rule, "passengers are requested to leave the car by the forward door;" the insistance of the car-taking throng to get aboard before the car-leaving throng make room; the grief of some and the grace of others in man- àging bundles; the queerness of the query, "Is this seat occupied ?" when plainly enough it is not, and the other OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 123 query, "Is this seat engaged?" when plainly enough en- gagements of that sort are of no binding force; the dispo- sition of some and the indisposition of others to sit alone; the contrivances contrived to effect the solitude; the sorry failures of the nice-laid plans; the astonishing difference of people in respect of sociability, varying from extreme chat- tiness and scrape acquaintances to sullen reticence and re- pulsion; their difference in modesty, varying from the talk heard the car over to the gentlest of conversational tones; the creatures who never get into a car and take a seat and sit, but ramble over the train from tender to tail, some to see who is aboard they know, and some for they know not what (spotters); the politeness that rises to seat a lady; the more practical that does not; the geniuses that habitually prefer the smoking car, though not smokers or card-play- ers (spotters and sharpers); the reluctance of some females to sit with males, and even vice versa; the infinite variety of tastes evidenced by dress; the never ending changes of style and fashion; the apparent consciousness and appa- rent unconsciousness, if any, of finely apparaled beauty; the envy that envies finery, and the finery that is never enough fine. These and many more topics from the same tomes engage the conductor's mind on his runs and greatly serves to lighten the yoke of his bondage and make him feel that he is not unincluded in the units of the e pluribus unum which encircles the brow of the American eagle. { THE AMBITIOUS SPOTTER. THE INCENTIVE. A defendant (conductor) was arraigned for some mal- feasance, and there was entertained after due hearing, a 124 JUDAS EXPOSED, reasonable doubt whether he did it. Whereupon he was acquitted and went joyfully out of court followed by his companion who had been a devoted and veracious witness for him. Presently the devoted came back and would be pleased to be paid his fee. Gravely he (spotter) was advised that the commonwealth pays only such witnesses as serve to convict a man of violating her laws, not such as serve to prove that a man has been a law-abiding citizen. The uneducated youth could not quite understand why the commonwealth should make this nice distinction, and, to tell the truth, it is rather hard for the educated to under- stand. On the surface it would seem that the state (com- monwealth) should feel the more generous when it turns out that a subject, instead of rebellious, has been loyal. First. When the spotter's observations show the company's employes honest the spotters are shelved, gene- rally for a long period, which makes business dead for the detective agency (occupation gone.) Second. When on the other hand, the spotter's ob- servations, show the company's employes dishonest, then there is no dearth, no truce, no arms-grounding; new men are employed by the railroad companies "who will in a short time fall into the same habits as the old, which is ground for another investigation. If your new employes are not looked after they are liable to the ways of their predecessors." And the companies "cry whoop" and set them (spotters) on again," which makes business brisk for the detective agency. 1. In the former (1st) instance, the detective agency has naught but sullen reticence for its spotter, feigning to doubt his capability and value, which the uneducated youth could not quite understand. Au OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 125 2d. In the latter instance (2d) the detective agency has a placid surface, a bright serene smile of approval is there to welcome him, the air is soft, the sky all azure; he is not laid off (shelved without wages and subsistence), but emolument is awaiting him in the shape of a raise in his salary, which is rather hard for him, the educated, to understand. Conductors on railways are like a flock of geese to the ambitious spotter, who plucks them for a feather bed. "Thus by this system, reducing the incentive for making false reports to the very minimum.” See Secs. 142, 7, 11, 17, 22, 31, 42, 43, 49, 52, 71, 83, 84 and 110 and 114 of Zeal's system of secret service; also pages 157-166, 168-174. The great misfortune to honest railroad employes is just this incentive afore-mentioned which makes the ambi- tious spotter who knows nothing about right and justice and don't want to, is besides being a blockhead one of the mean- est specimens on earth. HOW MR. ZEAL, PROPRIETOR OF THE DETECTIVE AGENCY GAINS AND CONTROLS THE PAT- RONAGE OF THE RAILWAYS IN THIS COUNTRY. The author enters upon the present chapter with entire confidence in the inability of the reader to expound the conundrum of the caption. Yet he makes no doubt that the reader here, as heretofore, is rushing headlong, heedless of the divine proverb which declares it folly and shame unto him who answereth a matter before he heareth it. 1t 126 JUDAS EXPOSED, 1 is as undoubtedty true as though he had spoken it outright that the reader has already made in his heart three several and positive conjectures in solution of the riddle here pro- pounded, What made him get the patronage? and it will be the province in part of this chapter to set forth specifi- cally the conjectures, that it may appear in the end, as appear it did in the Good Book of old somewhere, that rid- dles of the Samsonian type are not easily expounded. First. The reader has said in his heart that fifteen years and a little more ago, the hero of this chapter was a detective of high standing among the fraternity and of high repute as a citizen, engaged in a lucrative position, working as tracer, claim agent, special agent or the like, and pursuing it without a desire or dream of forsaking the same for any change for emolument of whatever kind. The exigencies of railway corporations required Mr. Zeal's secret services at that particular epoch for reasons alluded to in a former chapter entitled as "Detectives' Funerals." The railway managers lifting their heads above the piles of petitions filed at their offices by eager applicants cast their eye about the murky sea of vulgar aspirants for a man of capacity, disinterested benevolence and a self-sacrificing soul. Such a man the corporations descried in the hero of this chapter, and thereupon the hand of authority took him from his chosen lucrative position and placed him a willing sacrifice into a position to acquire wealth and repute. Second. The reader hath said in his heart that fifteen years and a little more ago the hero of this chapter was a cousin, nephew or brother-in-law of some railway president or remotely related to the cousin, nephew, brother-in-law, step-son or step-sister of the powerful railway president, and the railway managements, regardless of corporation weal and with minds fatally bent on the mischiefs of ne OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. ' 127 potism, did willfully and flagitiously ask the merest petti- fogger of a detective to be charge d'affairs of secret service to the scandal and lasting damage of all good servants in the employ on their roads. Third. The reader hath said in his heart that fifteen years and a little more ago the hero of this chapter was a prominent railway attorney, who had at diverse times and in sundry ways made himself serviceable in the causes of railway corporations round about and had to a limited ex- tent taken the stump and cried aloud for the powers that were, and thereupon in those days our hero aforesaid pre- sented numerously signed credentials and numerous testi- monials from influential railways, and other railways es- teeming these documents confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ that the applicant was "intelligent," "capable" and "reputable"-gave him their patronage in blind dis- regard of other petitioners for it, far more meritorious, whose virtue was not of similar activity. · These are the readers expositions, to all of which the author returns a clear, sharp and decisive negative. This would seem sufficient. It is, however, best to be logically explicit. Besides it is due to the reader that he have credit for some discernment, which he has assuredly shown. While there is not one pebble of foundation for his first and second conjectures, there is a modicum of truth in the third. True enough, as he seems to have divined, though his first gropings for the truth exhibit him as blundering upon it rather than possessing aptitude for great moral veri- ties; true enough, as all powerful patronage like office- holding of whatever grade or degree is fruit that grows on some branch, twig, shoot or sucker of the tree of personal or corporate activity. Unlike rules in general, this is a rule 128 JUDAS EXPOSED, without an exception. Easy it is and perhaps well enough to say what is once in a while said: Behold a case where the office came to the man, and did not wait for the man to come to it! But this is a mistake. Never went out office unto any man. Offices are stationary, inanimate, and without locomotion. Since the days of Washington, Carver, Cincinnatus, Moses, Noah, it has ever so been, and in the nature and fitness of things it must ever so be. As the mountain would not go to Mahomet, but required the prophet to go to it, so with offices. They will not budge, however they may beckon; and however they may allure they will not be allured by the lute of an Apollo. Offices, indeed are mountains varying in altitudes, difficulties of as- cent, and veins of precious ore, and no mountain ever lay down or bowed its summit peak for mortal man to be- stride. Nor did it to our hero, and never would he have compassed its dizzy height had he not been less or more a lively "worker." To this extent then the reader has expounded the rid- dle. But how far he is from the bottom fact, which this chapter shall presently heave to the surface and the light of day! Not because he was a detective eminent in his voca- tion, and of some retainers, little disposed though he be to discourage the readers from entertaining that pleasant suspicion if so they are inclined. Not because he was re- lated to some railway president by ties of blood, marriage or masonry, glad as he would be to have relationship to such a flower, not because he was a wire-puller, a striker, a caucus-carrier, a fugleman, a stump 'orator, a blow-hard detective-in a word a scurry fellow who gets him glass eyes and seems to see the things he does not-not for any one of all these reasons combined, or however associated, did it come to pass fifteen years and a little more ago that A OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 129 his detective agency gained patronage of nearly all the railways in the country. The reason, though very ocular, is far more occult, yet lies it in two tiny words so hintful of twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, that the intelligent reader ought to have divined the cause in a twinkling. Weak eyes woed and won him the patronage of nearly all the railway companies. If the reader should wander into the fancy that it is not within the scope of this work to introduce an essay on weak eyes, it would be not unlike his other wanderings. To the mind of the author this is precisely the place to descant on the infirmity. In point of fact weak eyes are at the bottom of this production and the foundation stone of it. But for these, as has already transpired, the hero of this chapter would not have been produced. If, therefore, any reason can be assigned why this work should not treat of the very thing which originated and inspired it, the author would feel highly gratified to have the reason set forth. Confidently believing that no such reason exists, he pro- ceeds to carry out his purpose and discourse, as he may be able, upon the theme of this chapter. It may be asserted without any fear of contradiction from those who are at all conversant with the matter that few if any of the afflictions that take hold of the flesh of man and obstruct his progress in the pathway of life ex- ceed in power the power of weak eyes. Most afflictions of this class are temporary and otherwise circumscribed in effect. Fevers run and are away. Broken limbs reunite and resume business. Toothache is transient. Rheuma- tism is on and off, principally off. Colic is curable, and lumbago is limited. But weak eyes are a perpetual grief. Like other misfortunes of a collossal size, the picture cannot be drawn, but only outlined in hints. To depict a 130 JUDAS EXPOSED, skeleton of it is the most that may be done. Intelligence must be relied on for the rest, but no intelligence will suffice unless the intelligent person who views the skeleton be him- self weak-eyed. Weak eyes can read but little, nor read that little long. Weak eyes eschew light insomuch that the eyeing of people eye to eye is sunshine. Weak eyes are never unconscious quite of pain. Weak eyes are incessantly self-provoked that they should look so fair yet feel so foul. Weak eyes hail cloudy weather and revel in a rainy day. Weak eyes water with sympathy at the sight of a man in goggles. Weak eyes are not credited on oath. Weak eyes in war or peace, are never exempt from draft. Weak eyes suffer long and are kind, vaunt not themselves, are not puffed up, seek not their own, but stop here and envy another's. Weak eyes marvel at the eagle, kindling his un- dazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam. Weak eyes cannot consider the heavens by night, scarce can glance at Arc- turus, Orion and the Pleiades, and perforce adjure astro- nomy. Weak eyes yearn for solitude; love to steal a while away where none intrudes; love to wander on the lonely shore and drink a cordial in the spray of breakers. Weak eyes cannot well sleep o' nights. Weak eyes shudder at the spectacle of a fellow traveler reading fine print in the Weak eyes continually wonder at the incredulity and incompassion of the strong-eyed. Weak eyes are full of inquiry whether they who think they stand, better not take heed lest they fall. Weak eyes are powerless before breakfast. Weak eyes shun nocturnal entertainments and all other evening things that light a candle. Weak eyes dread the sunrise, would hasten sunset, yet bewail the long nights of winter because of gas. Weak eyes know all about spectacles. Weak eyes love darkness rather than light. cars. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 181 Weak eyes hope on and are at length without hope in the world, well knowing from specifics tried throughout the alphabet of pharmacy, pennyroyals, and the laying on of hands, that not poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the East shall medicine them again to sweet sleep or communion sweet with the immortal minds of history. These are some of the incapacities, unhappiness, pro- clivities, repugnances, despondencies and weaknesses of weak eyes. And now it is nowise doubtful that questions are arising in the reader's mind that will not be put off by silence or circumlocution. They are easily anticipated, and, less space should give out if they were reduced seriatim to form, the author will, for his own convenience as well as the readers' condense and boil them down into one comprehensive, pointed interrogatory. If Zeal's eyes were so weak that he could not keep on as a detective, how could he gain and control the patron- age for secret service of nearly all the railway companies? It is a fair question and it shall be answered. It is to be remembered that clouds have silver linins, that long roads have turns, that poverty is not without riches, and that calamities are not without compensations. These are famous and imperishable sayings, whose verity, if doubted ever, may be doubted no longer, for the author has proved them all they are represented to be by proving that weak eyes are not without strength. When first he bestrid his steed he did not expect to keep on. Mr. Zeal had no wealth and did not see how he could without stray- ing off into the ditches that beset the roadside of detective avenues, streets and lanes. Remembering the critical, it may be hypocritical, habits of detective service, he was unhappy in the thought that, even if he should keep on, 132 JUDAS EXPOSED, his equestrianship would be the object of much fun-poking and the consciousness of his zig-zag courses would be to him a continual apprehension that the worst might at any time happen. Indeed it is not too much to say, that it was with fear and trembling that he took the reins and started onward, weak-eyed into the Daedalian country. But necessity has ever been the mother of invention and it turned out that, as invention in the nick of time plucked a detective like a brand from the burning, out of the perilous pit of digging and peering, of shadowing, roping, prying, snooping and mounted him the reader knows where-em- ployer of all the railroad detectives-so did a child of the same resourceful mother not only steady him in the sad- dle, but perform almost the miracle of giving sight to the blind. Fortune ere she plunges her unfavorites into struggle with adversity, is apt to wait till they have equipped them- selves with some slight means of warfare. Even so did Not wholly she in the case of the hero of this chapter. armorless was he ushered into the ambushes of combat with railway magnates. Through fitful gleanings in days agone he had gleaned and laid up such stock of glib as to suffice him for fifteen years on all ordinary baiting and adjudication. This glib he could measure off, apply and deliver with his eyes shut, ordinary complaints, sugges- tions, opinions, praise, blame, etc.; he managed to draw with one eye open at a time, letting each of the pair take turns. In the same manner wrote out statistics, compari- sons, surveyed detectives' reports of observation, conduc- tors' reports sent him, witnesses pro and con, detectives' attendant, callers' complaints and the bear's defendant and plaintiffs' dogs out on the roads, Then on extraordinary occasions he has recourse to an expedient that never fails OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 133 him with railway managers in the most trying emergency. Such, of course, are the occasions when grave questions arise to be settled once and forever. To meet emergencies which are so calculated to test his metal, frequent cases, where the veracity of the spotters' reports of observation appear more than doubtful, where injury has been inflicted evidently upon honest, upright railway employes—his method adopted is to question the respective spotters about it, who invariably not to appear liars, write up additional statements still more descriptive in corroboration, magnify- ing as much as possible the point raised-to imply in no uncertain words, that thereby hangs a tale of no small magnitude, and to insinuate to the railway managers, they cared not how far they went to the bottom of truth, a prin- ciple so fundamental to them, the detectives. The hero of this chapter will forward to the railway managers said detectives' additional statements, aforemen- tioned, respecting their accusations, accompanied with the detective agency's "samples of other tables of collection by and deficits of railway and passenger conductors, submitted for the information of railway officials." See page 73, section 133. "They form only a small portion of the tests "made by this service" (and are all true and correct, of course, like Holy Writ.) (Section 133.) "I have made comparions for other railways, section 134, the deficits in many instances seem very large but in every case where new men (R. R. employes, conductors) were employed my detectives' exhibits have been fully corroborated by their returns." Generally old and experienced conductors go through a car and make collections five times as quick as a new con- ductor will, and it is a fact that is proven by above asser- tion of Mr. Zeal, the proprietor of detective agency him- 134 JUDAS EXPOSED, - self, that his spotters' exhibits did not tally with the old conductors, but he does not say that when a car is crowded and there are many cash fares and many stations, day, but especially night times, when spotters don't know the name of every station and turnpike the train stops at, for in- stance on the L. N. O. & T. Railway, the St. L. & S. F. and many other roads, where passengers run in and out of their seats and the old conductor is a quick and efficient collector no spotter was ever born that can check cash fares under those circumstances correctly, and to avoid getting hell from his detective agency for letting the conductor ex- ceed him he will generally exceed the old conductor-and his exhibits with the new slow conductor will tally for awhile till the new conductor, like the old, collects faster than the eye of the spotter can follow and distinguish sin- gle, double, triple cash fares, where because of the many and short-distance-apart stations his memory cannot re- tain them and the best he can do in those cases is give a close average, if he is conscientious; if he is, however, an ambitious spotter and confused, he will exceed the old con- ductor, but tally with the new slow conductor. This is to be sure a circumstance fruitful of comment. And no mat- ter how deftly the detective agency covers this up and by statistics and arguments tries to clear their detectives in trying to make them and the system appear infallible be- fore the railway managers-it makes weak-eyed Mr. Zeal particeps criminis. There is no subsequent: "Right with justice, whom with power he wronged." See in connection sections 25, 31, 33, 52, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 71, 83, 84, 110, 114, and 123-125, 157-166, 168-174. To return to our theme. As I said, if there be any de- fence set up by the accused railway employe, Mr. Zeal, the OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 135 proprietor of the railway detective agency, who raised the point, is thus immediately moved by commendable pride to ransack the reports and quote statistics, not to be outdone by the railway employes. And the other side would do the same and when they have done it they will come to Zeal's agency or to their railway manager with their tales, state- ments and notes, and say their say at length, and the hero of this chapter (Mr. Zeal) will survey them with one eye open and one shut; and finally when they are all out of breath, and argument too, our hero will reserve his opin- ion, go home, ruminate, balance the matter awhile with closed eyes, resurrect from the depths of his consciousness the cited authorities, reports and statistics, fashion some involved decision and sentences, weaving and bracing the fabric with sundry oak-strong maxims not forgetting to praise the railway officials for their industry and good sense, and so having formulated an opinion after keeping it back a sufficient time for appearance's sake will deliver it with gravity. In this manner and way he has for fifteen years and more not alone kept, but increased the patronage for secret service of all the railway and sleeping car companies on the American continent. He kept astride his nag, and for aught he can judge by his opulence, his equestrianism is equally as satisfactory to him, as it would have been had he not had weak eyes. • 186 1 JUDAS EXPOSED, * WHAT THE RAILWAY MANAGER EXPECTS OF THE DETECTIVE EMPLOYER. 1 What do railway officials expect of the detective em- ployer? That he be promptly at his agency and ready to tend to business. This, reader, is your answer to the question, is it? Seldom was reader ever more fatally en- veloped in the fogs and misleading mists of error. The railway people do not thus expect. Discreet individuals ex- cepted, the railway people do not seriously suspect that the detective employer has any definite place of business apart from his house, his barn, his apple tree, the church, the depot, the rail car, the opera, the side-walk, the mid- dle of the street or all out-doors in general. Nor has it as much as entered the railway people's mind that the detec- tive employer has any regular hours of business apart from unearthly hours of the morning, bed time at night, and deep slumbers at midnight, and those other hours of the twenty-four sweet to most folks, when the opportune in- terval is supposed to be at hand for the reading of the daily paper or the scriptural lesson. So much is demonstrated from actual experience and data written out within a reasonable time after the event of torment and left indited and engraven upon the memory of a detective employer. It may be that others have not had the experience to be relied on for conclusive proof of the proposition. That is altogether probable, the reader is to remember that this is not the experience of any such detective employer, but of one who was also a detective, and if the reader will bear this piece of truth in mind he will have no difficulty with anything advanced in this chap- ter, the chapter before or the chapters to come. The de- OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 137 tective employer is oft awaked out of his sleep before the cock crows, and oft is debarred from his retiring after his family orisons, by many a male and many a female, bad- gering him on matters of business whose import, when fully probed, developed no exigency beyond the veriest item pertaining to the ordinary routine of every day occur- rences. At and on diverse other times and occasions in each and every year, in the highways and the by-ways, at the nooks and on the corners and elsewhere, he is in like man- ner badgered, buzzed and besieged, to the sore trial of his existence. The railway people expect the detective employer to carry in his head, to deliver, expound, and apply at a min- ute's warning the entire statistic of past reports, with the voluminous supplements thereto, propositions, remon- strances, bills and balderdash therewith; to carry in his head notes on every case in convenient parcels to suit them. Y Furthermore he is expected to reach out his right arm and constrain railway managers and superintendents to see cases as he sees them and in the event of their. not so seeing and reaffirming his opinions and suggestions, one and all then in that case, that he, the detective employer, demur not, if his detectives be pronounced rogues or idiots. This is only a general statement. The details would swell this chapter to insufferable propositions, and accord- ingly the chapter ends right here or would, but for another thing that remains to be said. The railway people expect the detective employer to wear a muzzle. Opinions he may have, if forsooth he list, outside of detective busi- ness. This liberty is sought to be vouchsafed out of defer- ence to the circumstances shadowed by the poet- All 138 JUDAS EXPOSED, Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit. But if opinion he have outside of detective business- opinions on politics, religion, temperance, schools, school houses, improvements, circuses, cattle, shows, tea parties, picnics, sewing circles, subscription papers-let him be- ware! He treads on forbidden ground if he opens his mouth the same to express. Not that he is ever and anon being enticed into a whisper, a composition, an item for newspapers or on some of these topics, and it may be on all of them at once, and the tempters are pros and cons. in such number as to flatter lum with the idea that his word alone will settle a grave dispute and restore peace to a divided body-not this, but because somehow, notwith- standing this, the railway people expect a detective em- ployer to be silent amid arms-silent leges inter arma and so it comes to pass that the moment he launches his bark upon the pond-hole of free speech there is an uproaAZ on the pond-hole. K Great prows and little steer straight for his imperti- nent boat, and unless he navigate a skillful retreat there is imminent danger of his dory being pierced through and through at the sides and himself sunk in the depths of the fretted waters. Therefore the railway people expect the detective employer to keep off the pond. 1 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 139 WHAT THE DETECTIVE EMPLOYER DOES NOT EX- PECT OF THE RAILROAD MANAGER. That he will deem him subject to the fallibilities and infirmities of his detectives. Again the reader assumes to make answer, does he? The reader better keep silent and not undertake to answer the questions herein asked, be- cause it grows plain that he is not quite sure of the ground he stands upon. If the reader had attentively read the preceding chapter and had the intelligence to understand it, he would have perceived what the detective employer does not expect of the railway manager, from perceiving what the railway manager expects of him, But lest there should be any doubt about it, which there seems to be, this chapter will be devoted synoptically to what it purports to communicate. The detective employer does not expect that the rail- way manager will deem his detectives made of clay, oak, rock, flint, iron, brass or whatever other material possesses qualities of surpassing endurance-this is what he is led ´inferentially by the railway manager to think his detectives made of. That flesh is heir to a break-down under the stress of extreme weather, such as sitting up awake at long intervals in railroad cars, filled to suffocation with curious perfumery-bearing passengers, he is also taught to treat as a mere flight of poetic imagination. Judging from the interruptions he has suffered while attempting the indul- gences, the railway manager means to and does insinuate to the detective employer that sleep is a frailty for detec- } Q 140 JUDAS EXPOSED, 着 ​tives, bathing an extravagant use of time, the cultivation of the mind, apart from sneaking observations and fi-fo- fums, a frivolity, and the attendance upon entertainments, religious or secular, a great waste. Hence the detective employer gravitates to the opinion that his detectives ought not to sleep, bathe, read their "Paradise Lost" or go to meeting. 1 Nor is ho to expect the railway manager to be mindful of the admonition, "Bear ye one another's burdens." The burden of being composed hypothically of oak, India rub- ber, pig iron or whatever may be everlasting, is a burden which the detective employer alone must bear. To stand in Africa and bear up the universal heavens was a task for Hercules. But to stand, heaven only knows where and bear up the canopy that looks down upon the planet of a rail- way detective office, is a toil and a labor, which the dreams of the mythologists did not compass. It is to bear blame-the blame of not knowing what one cannot know, the blame of not doing what one may not do; the blame of not being, like Boyle Roche's bird, in two places at once; the blame of unwillingness to do what the same Boyle Roche would gladly have done, sacri- fice not only a part of the constitution, but the whole of it, for the sake of preserving the remainder; the blame of not catching a thief before the car was locked; the blame of not getting a rogue punished enough, and the blame of getting him punished too much; the blame of convict- ing the innocent, though the reports showed him guilty; the blame of getting the guilty acquitted, though the re- ports of observation showed them innocent; the blame of receiving a complaint; the blame of refusing to receive it; the blame of lacking evidence, the blame of striving to get it; the blame of demanding severe punishment, the blame 1 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 141 of recommending mercy; the blame of the employes for favoring the manager; the blame of the officials for favor- ing the employes; the blame of feeling too big; the blame of feeling too little; the blame of rendering false reports; the blame of stirring up broils; the blame of stirring them down; the blame of stealing a, march; the blame of no march to steal; the blame of smiling to the detective; the blame of smiling to the railway employe; the blame of judging before hearing; the blame of hearing before judging. Nor is this all. It is to bear compliments, repealed by changes of mind, odious comparisons, the spittings of spite, anonymous letters, the paternity of my detectives' blunders, the officials' delay, laughter, jokes, jibes, con- tempt and faint praise. Such, if the reader has followed the argument, are hints of some among the many things which the detective employer does not expect to escape from the railway man- ager, and which therefore furnish a comparative answer to the interrogative caption of the concluded chapter. THE DETECTIVE EMPLOYER AND THE RAILROAD MANAGER AS FRIENDS. It appears, doubtless, from what has been intimated, that the detective employer and the railway manager were in a ceaseless state of antagonism, and little better than open adversaries. Paradoxical as it may seem, the contrary is the truth. In point of fact the detective employer and the railway manager are in the main steadfast friends. The relation of a detective employer to the railway manager may not inaptly be likened to the interesting rela- 142 JUDAS EXPOSED, tions of husband and wife, except that it is not obvious which is the better half, the analogy holds good in all essen- tial particulars. Yet it is not wholly obscure which is the party sustaining the wifely relation. Besides the functions of the detective employer which are of a domestic turn and tenor-keeping the house, washing dishes and dirty linen, looking after the boys on the road, while Sir Mana- ger is in the office, special cars, markets, stores, ware- houses, and money-making, it has been observed that upon patronizing the detective employer on the road there is for three months or so a very tender disposition towards him on the railway manager's part, manifesting itself in bland- ishments and caresses remindful of the honeymoon. For this cause the opinion has more fully obtained that the relation of the detective employer to the railway manager is the martial one of wife or weaker vessel. The reader will now please to remark the analogy, as the author essays to point out or hint the similitudes of the united life of detective employer and railway manager to the conjugal life of a wedded pair. Gradually from the warmth of the nuptial hour, the railway manager cools in the ardor of his devotion and weakness in affectional demonstrations till the enthusiasm of the honeymoon period is no longer perceptible. The detective employer ceases to be saluted with a kiss-ceases to anticipate it. As he (railway manager) comes into the house (detective's office) he is less thoughtful in scraping his feet, even comes in smoking, and does not straightway drop a word in revival of the sweet memory, instead of asking hintfully if this or that little thing might not be nicely done, scowls or perhaps growls that it has not been done. She (the detective employer) though loath that the aroma of the knottying should thus pass away as a vapor, OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 143 accepts, with a sigh, the situation, and in turn speaks out as if having a right or two that even men are bound to re- spect. Ominous mutterings after a while are heard from the masculine side touching the feminine expensiveness, to which retort is made that not the plumes and balmorals of madam so much cost when compared with the bourbon and feasting of mister, and if, forsooth, they do, did he not concede to the matter of marriage and housekeeping? Pretty soon the viands fail to suit and the reply is that they come of the flour and plaguey stove. By and by children are born. Babies born of a detective employer! Yes, babies-babies by twins, triplets, quadruplets. Every com- plainant detective, railway employe, plaintiff dog and bear -defendant and respondent, ex and un-ex, every reporter, loafer, fusser and teaser of this region, is a baby born of a detective employer. Bias of some sort, shade or shape marks the maternity of the mother, and the paternity is traceable to the features and species of pater, the railway manager. As the family circle enlarges, bickerings grow among the children as well as among the old folks. One parent takes sides against the other with this, that, or the other darling. One set of darlings takes sides against mamma, the other against papa. Controversies arise and run into each other as the years come and go, and oftimes wax hot. Divorce is broached, Great Trunk Railway, no alimony for the wife) divorce is menaced, and the explosion seems inevi- table. The lambs-these say, Let it come, those pour oil on the troubled waters and so it goes. But under it all, be- neath the fret and worry of the visible stream, there is a steady current of calm, union, peace, locking of arms, going to the same church, loving the same pastor, and looking up 144 JUDAS EXPOSED, and onward to the same goal and glory at length. The fast days are observed, the Fourths of July are celebrated, the Thanksgivings are sumptuous, the Christmas trees blossom - forth and generally-the family parties are hale and as hearty as if manager and detective were not party and party. WHY THAT RAILWAY OFFICIAL WHO RECEIVES DETECTIVES' COMPLAINTS SHOULD NOT TRY THE CASE. (TO PREVENT PREJUDICE.) In justice, not the same railway official ought to try his employe against whom he receives detectives' reports of observation, setting forth a complaint. The exparte hearing inevitably dispels the presump- tion of innocence with which every accused person should come to trial. Of the truth of this every railway official who has exercised the double office of receiver and trier of the same complaints must be satisfied. In vain will he endeavor to suppress the presumption of guilt which involuntary arises upon the arraignment and trial of the employe against whom he has read the re- ports of a story and issued a summons or call to his office. He may be ever so fair-minded in intent; the adverse presumption rises and dominates every time with a force, if not equal to one witness, at least with considerable force. It stands in human nature that, it should be so. Be- fore the face of the accused is seen, or his voice "not guilty" is heard, an impression upon the official's mind OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 145 5 unfavorable to the employe is made even by the summons by which that employe is called into his office loaded with accusations. At the start the employe is at a disadvantage. The scales are already tipped to his prejudice when they should be balanced for fair play. Nay, by the rule of law, the inclination of the scales should at the outset side to his innocence. Gainsay it as we may, the contrary is the fact in probably more than half of the prosecutions as origi- nally instituted by the detective agency and finally disposed of in the railway official's office. How can this be just? The constitution says:-"It is the right of every citi- zen to be tried by judges as free, impartial and independ- ent as the lot of humanity will admit.' A principle of law, equally as authorative ordains that "every person shall be presumed to be innocent until proved to be guilty." In the light of these declarations whose meaning is so unequivocal, is it not clear that the constitution and the common law alike are both violated by trial of every rail- way employe, whose judge is the official who read the de- tectives' reports of observatious and sent the summons for his employe. The question is beyond argument. To ask it is to answer, yea. The lot of humanity admits of greater freedom and impartiality in the official than result from a course of pro- cedure by which the official who is to try the case must inevitably incur a bias against the accused employe. If not the lot of humanity is deplorable enough. Then of a piece of this sitting in judgment of an em- ploye after being biased against him, is this questioning of witnesses by the official trying the case, particularly the 146 JUDAS EXPOSED, cross-examination by the official of the witnesses on the em- ployes' side. The very act of cross-examination puts the official that does it in an attitude hostile to the defendant employe. It avails little to say that the official is seeking but for the fact and the truth. Cross-examination, mild as you may make it, is a war of words. It is antagonism between the questioner and the questioned. The act itself of ques- tioning, as it is done to extort facts other than and contrary to those the witness has already testified to, excites in the examiner an incredulity as toward the witness. He is sinu- ously and insinuatingly led into a state of distrust of him. Generally this is so, and always is apt to be so, especially if the examination is protracted and the witness is not tractable. Now, this antagonism of examination as it necessarily warps the mind should not be a part of the mental condition of the official. Yet in three-fourths, per- haps of the cases, the work of sounding and picking the defendant railway employe's witnesses devolves on his official. It is impossible that the latter should not seem to the spectators to be contending for the detective agency as against his accused employe, and it is equally impossi- ble for him (official) not to feel that he is doing that very thing. But in the eye of the constitution and all good law of the land he ought not to side with the detective agency more than with the accused railway employe. The lot of humanity admits of reform in this matter and the constitution as well as common sense demands it. Provision should be made for the reception of all de- tective complaints by one railway official, other than the trier of the cases, and for the due examination of all wi- nesses, without any participation of the trier therein. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 147 Then the trier might sit on his benchlet with much, very much, more likelihood of a less scaly holding of the scales. RAILWAY EMPLOYES FOUND LEGALLY GUILT- LESS AND ACQUITTED. The management of a railway company is highly con- cerned in the due observance, by its employes of its rules and regulations; but the highest wisdom argues that it should not be more concerned in the conviction of offenders than for the protection of the innocent. Who presumes to injure another in person, property or reputation without admitting in the forum of conscience that he ought to indemnify the injured party? Who com- mits the injury without the law saying to the wrong-doer, "Redress the grievance ?" Wherefore then should a detec- tive agency attack groundlessly, the name of an employe and thereby put him to shame and cost and vexation and not repair the damage? It must be assumed that whoever is acquitted is absolved absolutely from the guilt imputed in the charge. This is true in theory and in legal contem- plation is a fact. Nor is it to be said that the acquitted, though innocent, are blameable for the circumstances that seemed to color them with guilt, and therefore should suffer to the extent necessary to vindicate their innocence. Must the wrongfully accused but innocent railway employe bear the odium inflicted to his good name by false reports without looking for legal redress and damage to the detec- tive agency? See page 152 and first half of page 165. 148 JUDAS EXPOSED, • : Soberly viewed, it is neither more nor less than rank injustice for a body with all its power and resources to accuse him and make him suffer the pains for exposing the falsity of the spotter's charge. If such a thing should be proposed as a fresh proposition, intelligence and fair play would revolt from it. Only long usage makes it tolerable. Oppression itself is at length borne as sort of matter of right, but as matter of right the yoke should be thrown off. Read the following chapter in connection herewith. RENDERING OF DECISIONS BY RAILWAY MANA- GERS. It is greatly to be feared that the so-called presump- tion of innocence in favor of the accused railway employe is a pretense, a delusion, an empty sound. It ought not to be but it is. Rufus Choate said that "this presumption is not a mere phrase without meaning," that "it is in the nature of evidence for the defendant, that it is as irresista- ble as the heavens till overcome," that "it hovers over the prisoner as a guardian angel throughout the trial," that it goes with every part and parcel of the evidence," that "it is equal to one witness." This is just what it should be, but this is just what it is not. Practically it is of no avail whatever in the trial. It is tread under foot; the same moment it is admitted in theory it is forgotten in argument. It is a dead letter. Nay, so far from being imperative, it is not hazardous to say that in the trial the presumption is reversed. At the company's office the accused is presumed guilty. Let every OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 149 official as he looks upon the detectives' reports of observa- tion and tests carefully inquire of himself and answer if this be not so. The reason is plain-the whole course of ferreting pro- cedure, from inception to close, is designed to shut out pre- sumptions of innocence and invite presumption of guilt. The secrecy of complaint-making at the official's office, the mysterious inquisition at the work, the delay, the en- forced silence of defence of the railway employe, till detec- tive agency has done its worst, are all so many steps and strokes to blacken the accused railway employe before he is permitted to open his mouth with a syllable of evidence to break the force of the damaging array of circumstances. To suppose that the presumption of innocence which un- biased nature prompts, is not before this time choked and strangled to death is an absurdity too gross to dispute. The treatment itself also of the accused railway employe, negatives presumption. The "presumption" in the presence of such things is a contradiction of terms. How can a person be presumed innocent who is presumably guilty? The fact that he is restrained presumes guilt. There is no other construction to be placed on the restraint. Human nature is not capable of any other. Yet human nature ought to presume innocence till the contrary is proved. What then? Shall the mode of order of proceeding against suspected violators of law be so modified as to allow officials' nature to be thus generous? Can it be so mod- ified? The object to be attained is worthy a good deal of experiment at the risk of a good deal of havoc of old-time forms and proceedings at railway official's office. Again: It would be a happy thing for the triers of re- refractory (criminal) causes in detectives' reports if some- body should succeed in defining a "reasonable doubt." A A. C 150 JUDAS EXPOSED, great felicity it would be if only someone should portray a reasonable douht beyond a reasonable doubt. Nothing is more glibly spoken of than this doubt, yet is there nothing more doubtful. Detectives roll it into their reports and notes and roll it off at officials as if it were a thing to be apprehended with as much certainty as a stark-naked fact. But what a reasonable doubt is, it is doubtful whether they stop to think, or stopping form any but a very doubtful opinion. Should it be a matter of opinion at all? Should not every one who is to inquire whether he has it, have as absolute idea of what a reasonable doubt is as he has of any other independent fact in the case? If the case is to turn on the matter of reasonable doubt, how can it turn aught, unless the turning-point be ascertained and fixed beyond a reasonable doubt beyond all question? The learning of the books on this subject is vast. It begins with the bible-that is to say, the book-writers make it begin there. Its equivalent law-givers, since the time of Moses, find in the Mosaic provision, which forbade the death penalty till the crime, "betold thee and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it is to be true, and the thing certain." (Deut. 17, 11.) This is said to be the amplification of Moses as definer of the doubt. Modern authorities do not seem to have done much better. But not because they have not tried. One au- thor says that "the persuasion of guilt ought to amount to such moral certainty as convinces the minds of reason- able men beyond all reasonable doubt." But what is the reasonable doubt ? Another says that "a reasonable doubt may be described by saying that all reasonable hesitation in the minds of the triers, respecting the truth of the hypothesis attempted to be sustained, must be removed by the proof." Another describes it "as that degree of cer- OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 151 tainty upon which the jurors would act in their own grave and important concerns." This seems to approach nearer a solution and resembles a definition once heard in a charge to a jury. The judge who gave it is admittedly one of the ablest and clearest- headed jurists who ever sat upnn the bench. He is the man whom Rufus Choate called "one of the ablest minds in the state." As nearly as memory serves his words were as follows: "Just what a reasonable doubt is, gentlemen, it is not quite easy to say, but you are practical men, and I instruct you that you should be satisfied of the defendant's guilt to that degree of certainty which you would require for your guidance in acting decisively in any grave matter of your own within such time as is ordinarily given to a jury for deliberation in the case.' Allowing this to be the right instruction is it not probable that many, very many railway employes are convicted without proof beyond à reasonable doubt. See pages 45-48 inclusive. "" NOTE:-See sections 49, 52, 56, 60, and 61 of Z's. System. Furthermore, referring to statements of corroboration of complaints set forth in their reports by the detectives against railway employes-these statements are to be con- sidered more or less as a fake and of little value as a bur- den of proof by the detective agency. This burden of proof is another expression that should have a more fixed meaning. Like all other expressions used familiarly in discourse it loses force and weight by its commonness. It plays a windy, wordy part in all argumentation on ques- tions of fact. To the mind of the average hearer it as- sumes the likeness of a harmless sort of puff-ball, tossed hither and thither by cunning, scheming detectives to 1 C 152 JUDAS EXPOSED, i mystify the case and the hearer, and for about the same reason, the trier comes to treat it as not of very important account. How often does the railway manager give it ser- ious thought that the detective (agency) is weighted with a burden which the accused railway employe is not-that having asserted a thing he should show it to be fact by a preponderance of the evidence? Many reason that asser- tion must be true otherwise it would not have been asserted. Some officials regard ipse dixit demonstration. Other railway managers look upon denial as despair. To them, he who denies must be in a fix. They never get the better of the first impression of the first word of the detective. But the old Roman rule-the proof devolves on him who declares (the detective) not on him who denies (railway employe) is the American rule, and there is no rule that ought to be more rigidly enforced at the railway manager's office or out of it? A righteous rending of it would be: Let the detective who cannot make good what he would assert hold his peace or hold forth at his peril. Then there would be less holding forth. There is too much holding forth by detectives. Too much there is of swift, heedless, wanton allegation and accusation of a scheming sort and of all sorts. Rights of railway employes are rated too low. Their reputation is reckoned too cheap. It is painful to relate that railway employas' reputation is held in very cheap estimation. Secret service procedure of its kind on the railways is a standing invitation to attack it at the railway company's excuse. And civil procedure affords no adequate remedy when it is attacked and damaged. A suit for libel or slan- der by a railway employe however well grounded in law, generally leaves the aggrieved employe worse off than when OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 153 he invoked the law's aid. Before he can get a trial, the slander by the detectives has done its worst, and before he can get a verdict he has spent thrice the money the law gives him to right the wrong he has suffered. THE RAILWAY EMPLOYES' HOPELESS DISADVAN- TAGES. 1 The general idea is that the railway manager's decision must be right, in cases about their employes, etc., and if that reverses the statements made by the detectives' reports the latter ought to hang his head pretty low. Possibly; but before accepting this popular idea, it may be well to take counsel of another equally 'popular-circumstances alter cases. Let it be assumed that the railway official is right and the detective wrong, when with the same evidence in the same case before both, the railway official reverses the statements reported him by the detective. Until the established order of thought and logic should be revolu- tionized such, doubtless, in fairness should be the assump- tion. But then it is to be asked, "How rarely is it true that the same evidence in the same case is before the rail- way official as is before the detective." So rarely is it that it is all but safe to say that the instance never occurs. Not to speak of the difference in the situation of the case, as to the evidence the detective can bring and that which the railway employe is enabled to offer, in the one place and the other at the one time and the other, by which it takes color and character from the surrounding influences and circumstances of description of detectives' reports by the freshness of the events, the immediate jar of the M → 154 JUDAS EXPOSED, 1 neighborhood, and the knowledge quite direct of the par- ties and the absence of these things, with much advantage, with a clearer view of the case, the detective profits by the delay and is afforded ample opportunity to excrcise his arts in fortifying himself and enfeebling the adversary and this is a secret too open to be questioned, less he be too conscientious to swear less than the whole trnth, but the inajority do not scruple so it happens that he enlarges upon and strengthens his former reports of observation already sent to the company's office, by additional statements, ready at hand-if the railway manager doubts his former reports or has decided adversely to complaints set forth therein against railway employes. The tug of war is all on the side of the detective, and there is no danger that he will look out for substantiating his complaints by additional ready evidence, which he will spread out at any length whenever he needs to do so; while since the railway em- ploye cannot make a clever showing since the time elapsed, his witnesses have gone away, the particular circumstances have been forgotten, as will be his burst of honest resentment against the complainant and if the latter has a good former record, influence based upon political, social or personal grounds, by which his manager is occasionally induced in consideration of a plea of guilty, and avoidance of trial and bother, to favor him with a reduction of penalty or place the case on file, or peradventure, to spare him or take his full part; the slandered and aggrieved railway employe gets out of the manager's office with an air of triumph. By above methods, one or the other of them or two or more of them combined is the railway employe's case fre- quently impaired and imperilled, while the detective agency's is as often correspondingly broadened and braced by addi- tional testimony and the drill of their spciters. It would OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 155 $ be a novelty, not to say an infamy, to find detective employ- ers at their agency offices drilling their spotters in the part they are presently to act on the witness stand, but what more common than to find them such drill grounds and the detective manager the drill-master. These things, therefore, all considered, the wonder is that the railway manager sometimes reverses the detective's judgment and acts just and lenient. ISHMENTS. A RAILWAY MANAGER'S OPINION ABOUT PUN. That reports of complaints by detectives against rail- way employes are not more often viewed in the light of mitigation and reversal; I say. If the acquittal be right or the reduced penalty conform better to the offence the effect must be as good as justice itself. But if the acquittal be opposed to the fact or the punishment as lightened be an error of leniency, it is not difficult to see that the effect must be demoralizing and otherwise costly to the road. (1.) It encourages immediately in the neighborhood of the offence a spirit of lawlessness the logical conclusion of the offender and his associates being that he committed no offence after all, or, if an offence, not so much of a one as was reported to this office. In this conclusion the whole force of employes in general to some extent share. (2.) It weakens not alone among habitual law-break- ers but all others, the respect in whieh for grave and dis- creet reasons the lowest order of officers over the road, as well as the highest attending thereon should be held by the 156 JUDAS EXPOSED, $ employes; by which is meant that degree of proper respect which is due to the railway company's servants who act presumably from right motives. (3.) It multiplies the appeal cases: a single instance of an appellant employe's triumph in a verdict of "not guilty," or a sealed-down penalty being sometimes enough to vocalize a whole division, that that justice is not to be had save upon appeal. AUTHOR'S NOTE :-Accordant with above it would seem to be not an ill considered proposition which has been more than once made that there be appointed by the R. R. Com- panies regular attorneys to take charge from the commence- ment of all prosecutions of railway employes by detectives, at the managers' offices. At first blush this might seem a great expenditure, extravagant and unwise. It is scarcely to be doubted that in the reach of results it would be a measure of economy to the R. R. Companies, and contribute in promoting the ends of justice and the good order and welfare of all their emyloyes. More fair play is wanted. For if this abuse is continued much longer on the part of the detective agency against trusted employes, why not start a society for the prevention of cruelty and injustice to stop the unscrupulous snoopers from constantly putting innocent railway employes in a hole? The few dishonest employes, who certainly deserve condemnation, make the excuse for the "spotter." # OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 157 1 1 $ THE DETECTIVE AGENCY'S OVERWHELMING AD- VANTAGES. Upon the surface, but on the surface only, it would seem to be right that in prosecutions the detective agency should have the open and the close-the opening of the case to produce the first impressions and the closing argu- ment or the last word to confirm them, This right or rather custom may be supposed to have had origin in the circumstance that the detective agency (and the R. R. office) awarded to the employes what has before been seen to be an empty thing, the presumption of innocence, and the further circumstance that the detective agency assumed the burden of proof, which may as readily be seen to be little better than the burden of a blown bladder. The plain truth is that, whatever the burdens the detective agency may affect to be burdened with in convicting the accused railway em- ploye, it has a decided and quite uninterrupted advantage over him from the inception to the end of the prosecution. The radical truth is that, whatever the tenure of the rail- way officials and whatever the other safeguards placed around them, the detective agency has unlimited influence with them and expects to have its own way with them. Nor is it far from the truth to say that it does. The ostentatious use of the phrases "the burden of proof," "the presumption of innocence," "the proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt," as made in the text books, is unsubstantial as fanfaronade when the modes of their *( こ ​? wonde oorlee 158 JUDAS EXPOSED, $ 24.14 1 customary procedure are fairly and fully viewed. As seen too often in practice, these ravings are scarcely other than an undisguised declaration as of what is the fact now as well as in former times-that these phrases are a thin con- cealment only of a determined purpose of the detective agency to convict its man every time. The detective agency shuts off hope to begin with. Does it not excite hope only to defer it to the making of the heart sick? If the official presumes an accused employe innocent, why does he ask him whether he is guilty? If the burden of proof is upon the detective agency, why does it not proceed to discharge it at once? What is the arraignment but a covert menace that, if the accused railway employe does not own up, it will be worse for him? This not seldom is the admission or rather the confession of the railway official, who con- descendingly consents to impose a lighter penalty in con- sideration of his arraigned employe's plea of guilty. As if an employe presumed innocent, should be worse off for in- sisting upon the proof of his guilt. It is the commonest thing for an official to be guided by the detective agency in punishing a railway employe; but who ever knew an official to be guided to leniency when the detective agency was pulling in the opposite direction; who ever knew a manager to inflict a light punishment when the detective agency de- manded a severe one? ኑ It is considerable to say, but unfortunately truth, that the detective agency has a powerful advantage in having the railway official lean always to its side. If the case be be- fore one where emolument is dependent upon the number of such cases, it is undeniably so, because the more he convicts the better will he please the detective agency, who bring him the complaints. Everybody who has had prac- tice or at all watched this thing, knows this for sure. If OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 159 # the case be before a disinterested official, the leaning toward the detective agency, though less selfish is not less positive. It is believed that such a one often leans without really knowing it, but he always leans. The feeling that operates so much with everybody operates with him-the feeling that it is a little safer to be on the stronger side. Then the sense of authority (with directors, etc.) with which the sound of the detective agency impresses on his mind is a constant influence on him (for example: J-, of the Mex. Center). Some officials too, are not seldom swayed by some supposed self-interest, without admitting it as such, treating the matter of justice as a kind of worldly affair. Their discourses, as sometimes overheard, or afterward re- ported, have looked frugally to the question of expense to the corporation and in the event of a show-up, nothing to show for it. As for the detective agency whose detectives are paid by stated salaries by the day, week, month or year, and who therefore would seem to have no motive to favor one side more than another (see sec. 142) a confession must be made. These detectives thus lifted into an atmosphere of serene "independence" alas! are also human. The fear of the detective employer (see pages123-125) be it confessed is ever before their eyes; for as it was he who made them, he can unmake, and assuredly will, if reports are not about so and so. These things do not relate chiefly to "good behavior" either. The extent mostly to such perti- nent inquiries as, how many cases does he Mr. Catchemsure have to keep him busy? How many days can he prolong the case? How much has come into my treasury by him last month? How much does he draw out as "costs ac- crued ?" In a word how comparatively profitable to his creator is Mr. Catchemsure down on the Mexican Centre P J C 160 JUDAS EXPOSED, 2 Railroad? Such are the queries that shape the argument (see pages 123-125) whether Mr. Detective should be dis- charged or retained. Now, as said, a detective, though paid by salary, is human, and it is not in human nature for him to like to lose his job. He prefers to stay in till he gets ready to resign or die, if get ready he ever doth. Accordingly ex- erts himself how he may so stand up as to be a Judas bonus; he will infallibly crook the pregnant hinges of the knee that the thrift of his employer's approval may follow fawning. He will habitually aim to lengthen out his docket, knowing that it will be inspected and quizzed as a "monthly return;" he will incline graspingly to game- catching, knowing that his reports and comparisons at the agency will be scanned (he will be thought dropped on or known if he don't catch anybody and called home and shelved); he will hesitate to pass the innocent employe lest he be charged with unobservance and inefficiency; he will even now and then placate biased detectives-fellow detec- tives, or working by his lirections under him, "dog eat dog"--who so contribute to the detective agency's business, by writing up their reports of observation, taking their own estimate of the evidence (when testing conductors) in- stead of his own! This is a humiliating state of affairs, but it is due to candor that the confession thereof be made. The detective employer (proprietor of five or six differ- ent detective agencies in the United States has the mon- opoly of patronage for secret service for nearly all the railways in the land) demands a revenue from his agencies. and is not satisfied unless he can point to quite a pile of it, whereas he ought to be the last man on earth to think of such a thing as being over greedy. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 161 " To maintain a detective agency in the name of justice with a view to gain any greed is monstrous mockery!!! What is it mostly but a mercenary lust to pocket blood- money, yes blood-money out of the distresses of poor and honorable railway employes? This, however, is what is done by the patronage by railways of a private detective agency, whose existence is in any degree made contingent on the number of its docketed cases and the amount of its collected blood-fines! Such a detective agency is compelled by the very terms of its appointment to puff and to stir up criminal business, to magnify broils and misde- meanors on railways into grave violations of law, and to fan the flame of discord generally. Yet such is the motive spring that moves or lets move all the railway detectives working for the detective agency. NOTE: See pages 123--125 In a notable instance the chief tests applied in the regulating the salaries of detectives were, how many cases does he return per such and such a period? How much does it pay into the detective agency treasury to have him working? Some very conscientious detectives occasionally turn up, but as a rule they are short-lived, who dreaming that they would serve the interests of the agency better by letting well enough alone and avoiding to do railway em- ployes wrong, and by avoiding to do such wrong they would better conserve the peace and harmony on the railway, were given to understand that such services were not and would not be appreciated (see where it is mildly insinuated, sections 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, (spent your money and catch 'em anyhow) sections 17, 18, 19, 22, 28, 81, 48, 49, 52, 70, 71, 84, "asleep?" was not the conductor onto them and exceeded the detectives on purpose? (the eye that never sleeps got shut that time by the conductor,) sections 110, { K } 1'62 JUDAS EXPOSED, 114, and in sections 115 to 122 inclusive the detective is drilled in telling falseoood (and making up false reports) by his employer-section 126-you must in addition make some comments-section 127-it becomes necessary to issue new orders-section 128-new tricks and new schemes, etc. That what the detective agency wanted was cases and broil stirring, and as much cash as possible out of the hubbub. With the spirit of authority thus lashing the detectives into business, who shall say that the detective agency does not expect an advantage in every trial of its strength with a railway employe from the railway official and that it does not always have it. The treatment of the accused railway employe-allu- sion to which has before been made-from the time he is reported to his official to the conclusion of the latter's de- cision in his case, tends powerfully to negative the vaunted presumption of innocence, and load him with impressions of guilt. Especially is this in a dishonesty case where most of it would seem the presumption should not there avail more than in any ordinary disciplinary digression. A trained detective to prosecute by his reports, notes, state- ments of corroboration, etc., etc., every case at the railway company's office is an advantage which the detec- tive agency has over more than three-fourths the defend- ant railway employes whose cases are acted upon there. Probably not more than a very small minority of the lat- ter employes have any counsel or witnessess or evidence at all ready there. The mere fact of being without these makes against them. Nobody is so unfortunate as he who seems to have no friends. The great privilege of this detective agency to send their detectives or witnesses to any part of the country they've OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 163 got a mind to, any time they list, no matter when or in what number, is a great privilege granted them by the Putt- nam Sleeping Car Company, who even then pay the detec- tives for checking sleeping car conductors, and if not a de- tective no such check is required simply say: everything O. K. on sleeper, or as the case may be! see section 29, 59, 60, 61, 131, that is fill out an inspection blank, if private individual, furnished beforehand by detective agency, and the sleeping car company will refund the price (money) paid for railroad ticket and sleeping car berths to the detec- tive agency who have always a standing contract. unlimited almost, for a number of years with said sleeping car com- pany. Railroad companies refund sleeping car companies the cost of the railroad tickets used by their [sleeping car com- panies] detectives on sleeping cars. See sections 29, 59, 60, 61, 131 of Zeal's system of secret service. The power of the detective agency besides having no expenses to have their detectives, or even private individuals, (as some pas- sengers) attend as witnesses is another signal advantage over the railway employe. The detective agency need not pay out of its own pocket, the detectives thus engaged, but gets paid by railway companies extra for so much time con- sumed per detective $7, $8 to $10 and incidentals, gener- ally out of which they pay their detectives $1.00 to $2.00 per day for subsistence, and from $35 to $75 per month salary, exclusive of incidental expenses incurred by him, for treating, etc., but the detective generally when he is laid off temporarily, for lack of work or something to do -gets nothing at all, not even subsistence-whereas a rail- way employe would have to pay enormously to summon his witnesses, etc., if he has any, or else be convicted of guilt, suspended or discharged by his official. Full many a rail- F 164 : JUDAS EXPOSED, way employe is unable to make a defense and show his in- nocence by reason of poverty. He cannot procure wit- nesses for want of means, and never was a railway com- pany known to furnish him means to prove, if he might, that he had not violated its laws. If the continuance of a case is asked by a defendan- railway employe the better to make clear his defence, in. variably almost the agency consults what it terms the in- terest of the railway company rather than the employes'- speaks of the cost it will be to the corporation to keep its (agency's detectives) witnesses in attendance, concurs gen- erally with the railway official and says "Take action at once." As if it were not the highest interest of the rail- way corporation to find out whether an accused employe be rightly accused. As if a detective agency should sit to economize for the corporation more than to satisfy the com- pany that it has no just cause to make economy necessary. The opening and closing of a case at the company's offices are great advantages to the detective agency having them. To have the first and the last word in any controversy to be settled by a railway official, is to have the best end of the rope. Everybody of whatever grade of intellect feels this and knows it. For nothing will detective agency more strenuously contend for than the right to open and close, whenever that right should be in dispute. This important privilege the detective agency has arrogated to itself. Nor has it rendered to the railway employes against whom it exercises the privilege, any equivalent. The consideration it pretends to have parted with, var- iously styled the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof, reasonable doubt, etc., etc., are not good and valua- ble. They are rather a delusion and a snare. It is ques- tionable whether it would be in the power of the detective OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 165 t agency to render any really sufficient equivalent for the immense advantage it has, alone, in the open and close of every case on trial. The detective agency has advantages enough when it exercises the power of accusing a railway employe and holding him with a cloud of official suspicion about his head, till it (the agency) gets ready sometime in the uncer- tain future to have him tried. To add to these and other advantages here glanced at, the advantage of bringing a railway employe from his road before his officials and hit- ting him the first blow before his "peers" and then the last, and all in the name of the railway company by whose fiat deteetive agency exists, and whose money pays it and the peers-what is it but to knock a man down and tell him to get up if he dare? And it is submitted that this state of things is entirely unworthy, it is a disheartening not to say distressing fact, that above detective system sketches and winds through all the railways in every state of the Union. Whether it be better to reform it, to sue or not to sue, to appeal or not to appeal, that is the question which every railway employe, who feels his rights are in issue, knows will not be fully set at rest without delay, expense and vex- ation of a litigation on to the tribunal of last resort. It is a great and consequential question, if it be legal there is nothing will settle it this side the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth. Before the portals of that august tribunal swing open, one must in a journey of considerable duration hack his way through trials at the expense of a good deal of axe- sharpening, chopper-hiring and flesh-tearing. When the oracle is reached he must be liberal in the burning of in- cense, and piously sacrifice upon the alter divers fee-bill - $ 3 1 166 JUDAS EXPOSED, j bullocks ere he presumes a consultation and when he has consulted he must depart in a serene patience and abide the oracle's response. This may or may not be given before one or both parties to the suit are dead. All this and much more we are bound to assume, is in exact conformity to that clause of the constitution which declares:- "Every subject of the Commonwealth ought to obtain right and justice freely, and without being obliged to pur- chase it, completely, and without any denial, promptly and without delay, conformably to the law." There is a better way, a surer way for reform- the pen. THE CONSCIENTIOUS DETECTIVE. Detectives are born, not made, and the born detective is now before you. You have waited for his appearance. Other detectives have radiated darkness, but light shall presently dawn. He is not necessarily a good man. A bad man may be a good detective, not because he is bad, but because he knows how to tell what he knows without telling what he ought not to tell. To say this does not imply that he breaks his oath by suppressing the truth in part, being sworn to tell the whole. He is naturally truthful. Bad men as the word goes, sometimes are. Good men as the word goes, sometimes are not. The naturally truthful detective, which is the conscientious detective does not en- cumber his testimony with irrevalancies and qualifications and unsaying his sayings. He is not necessarily intelligent. The intelligent detective may be a poor one. Intelligence for a detective may be like the much learning which makes a man mad, The reason is already given, he is naturally * OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 167 truthful without even knowing it. The truth is in him, and comes out directly without circumlocution. Truth never is circumlocutory. Truth is never in a hurry to be heard. It abides its time. He is not conscious of helping or hurt- ing a case much. He is not apt to think his testimony in- sufficient to the issue. Ask him if the thing was not as intimated in his reports, he does not remember; ask him if he cannot refresh his recollection, and he cannot say; ask him if he cannot say what he thinks, and he thinks he cannot. Did he not hear what was said on the occasion ? He might, but if he did he has forgotten. Did he not see what was done? He was not noticeing. He has no interest to become "ambitious"-not he. He is not often cross- examined after this, and he leaves the detective office, under the suspicion of being a huge prevaricator if not liar. Very far removed he is from self-conceit, vanity, egotism. In short the conscientious and good detective is as unlike all other detectives as Jenny Lind was unlike all prima donnas before and since her time. A fashionable Saint Louis lady drawlingly said of Miss Lind, without knowing how much she said: "Why Jenny Lind is a very natural singer but then perhaps she is all the better for that." So the good detective is a very conscientious observer and reporter but all the better for that. $ 168, > { 7 JUDAS EXPOSED, SPOTTERS. (LOW GRADE INFERIOR DETECTIVES.) I . ... As no two faces are alike, so no two spotters. They differ in manner, method and motive, in wit, in cunning, age, sex, dress, and in all other things which enter into the character of man. There are different varieties, there are the swift, the slow, the roundabout, the cautious, the volu- ble, the pedantic, lying and a good many others of the same tribe, all carniverous and omniverous. See also pages 30- 123--125. In charity it should be believed that most people pre- fer to see a man found innocent rather than guilty. We must resort to some charity, it is believed that most peo- ple do. But rarely if ever is this true of a spotter-if he -is on a case. If he be an old spotter, and has made and caused the complaint to be made or has furnished informa- tion for the indictment, and the railway official acquits the employe, almost, if not quite his heart breaks, or if as some assert, an old spotter in the matter of making out com- plaints for prosecution, is void of heart, then instead of heart-breaking his sense of justice is torn to tatters. It is quite remarkable, the despondency, gloom and despair itself that will sometimes take possession of a vet- eran prosecutor when an official, after weighing the evi- dence which he has adduced, arrives at a conclusion which he has not reached. It is no purpose that he is given OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 169 1 credit for having done his whole duty. It is no comfort that he is assured of the innocence of the railway employe whom he has accused in his bespattered reports of obser- vation. This is mere dust and ashes. He wrings his hands. His eyes lose their lustre and he begins to distrust railway managers at whose shrine he has long laid his choicest offerings. But the shock to his faith is short-lived, he rallies at the sound of the next victim, and is as radiant as ever. But though his confidence in the guilt of the railway employe is in cases where he is himself the accuser, his assurance is not so marked and obvious when a fellow spot- ter is the prosecuting genius. Then he is apt to think and is sometimes bold enough to say that every railway em- ploye is to be presumed innocent till proved guilty. On one occasion it is said, that while a trial was going on in which he felt little or no personal interest, a scarred and gray-haired spotter blurted out the liberal remark that it was better a thousand guilty employes should go unpun- ished than that one innocent should suffer. Indeed it is not an uncommon thing for spotters to contemplate the efforts and enterprises of another in their course of justice with feelings akin to distaste, distrust, disparagement, nay disgust. It is true that now and then and not infrequently two or more of these blood hounds may lock arms and co- operate in a case for the company's weal; but if ever two co-operated without each lamenting in the other the want of tact, shrewdness, gumption and all manner of smart- ness the evidence is not reported. There is another funny thing about spotters. When one has been one, one wants to be one always. If one has been one a pretty good spell, till he has got the hang of it, acquired the dialect and some mastery of the forms for } 170 JUDAS EXPOSED, writing up reports of observations, and has invested in a stately fob chain with seal ring or badge, and so forth to match and then is "bounced'' he is of all mortals the most inconsolable and forlorn. Life has for him no at- tractions from spotting, and watching, and squealing apart. The detective agency's policy, with few exceptions to this rule, is by some scheme or subterfuge to get rid of spotters, no matter how experienced and otherwise well behaved they may be, who have been a number of years in its ser- vice, thinking that he like the bloodhound has bitten too many, and that therefore he may be known to employes and smelt afar off, and that his teeth have become too dull for churning; besides the detective agency can then get new pups and train them in a short time, who will work for a bare pittance of the blood money-for a valentine. The old spotter after he is mercilessly ousted, as a rule has not a cent, and he addresses himself at once and as regularly as vacancies occur or possibly may to the re- trieval of his fortune. It happens generally that though he abides in perpetual hope, he never retrieves it. The ex- spotter goes down to his grave-never prematurely, for outrageous fortune, as if to mock him to the uttermost, lengthens out his days to patriarchal length-goes down to his grave disappointed indeed, but with the proud conscious- ness that he was once a spotter and with the spotters stood. So much may be said of the salient peculiarities of spotters. If the saliences be faults with the inferior grade of detectives, the failings of a better class of them, the conscientions detectives, have a leaning to virtue's side, for without the eagerness of detectives to convict their man how often might the guilty go unpunished, and without the eagerness of the ex-detective to be unexed how might the railways sometimes be without the right man in the right OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 171 | place? In truth it has some, but few good and conscien- tious detectives, and with them there is to be observed a notable leaning to virtue. What would the railway com- panies do without such men on their road. Stop and think. What of a railway without a single detective? A great deal may be rightly said against the tribe, a very great deal must-but a good deal is said heedlessly by some and malic. iously by others. Compared with the blood money they receive, no corresponding number of men get more kicks and bruises. No set of men are more roundly abused by their agency, in fact I may say by everybody, no matter how serviceable they may be. Save the soldier in war, who is more exposed to peril than the spotter, if he follow his agency's instructions to the letter. The earnest, fearless, vigilant, conscientious detective who mixes with the qualities implied by these epithets the requisite salt of prudence is certainly a useful servant to the railway companies. To make him such, courage, pru- dence and vigilance must, to be sure, nicely combine. A detective without courage is not worth a fly. A courageous detective without prudence is a fool. A detective courageous and prudent, but not vigilant, is a minus quantity. But it does not follow that every wise man, who is also brave and constant, would make a good detective. Solomon, had he been as wise, and as ambitious to spot a road as he was to build a temple, and as assiduous in the calling as he was in the wife-getting, might have proved a poor detective. As poets, so detectives are born, not made. It is necessary that they like the business to be good for anything. How anybody can like this detesta- ble business is strange, but there are enough who do. Many like the business who have not the first qualifications . • 172 JUDAS EXPOSED, for it, and that the detective agency ever goes begging for candidates or recruits is sheer ignorance. Disagreeahle as are the duties of the detective, perilous as they are if fully performed, exhausting as they are alike to the body and mind of the vigilant watch, the agency never has any difficulty in finding persons enough to take the places. But there is trouble enough in finding persons enough to fill the places. While the agency is never begging for incumbents who will be recruits, it is always begging for, and always lacking such as are competent. There are lots and lots of worth- less scamps, mere spotter trash sent out over the railways every day by the detective agency to the great detriment, injury and misfortune of upright railway employes. However it would seem otherwise it probably requires greater pluck to be a good detective in the country than in the city. In the city the detectives are more like an army moving in column or batallion, or at least in squad; phys- ical courage is required, but one in company can brace up better than separated. In the country the active detective is rather as a lone guard who must face his foe single- handed, he may perhaps call on bystanders for help, if there be any, but generally there are not, and if there be they are very apt to lag, and let the detective get done up' In the city nobody gossips, bnt out in the country every- body gossips, and on the train if the spotter is dropped on, or is known, he is the particular personage whom the gos- sips of the fault-finding species do pelt and pepper. He is the man who is never let alone, who is never praised, with- out dispraise, who can never do without some charge of overdoing, undoing or misdoing, who can never omit to do without some insinuation of bribery and corruption. (A few 1 OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 173 1 years ago the detective agency had a spotter, in charge of a dozen or more other spotters checking conductors on the Northern Peaceable Railroad, who asked the conductors to pay him so much for each round trip for pointing out his own spotters each time to them; the conductors refused, (it was no inveigling but actually a money making scheme on the part of one H. Mc. the chief spotter) to agree to his corrupt proposition and after they had taken a good muster of all the spotters informed their officials about it. The North Peaceable Railroad was duly indemnified, in other words not charged anything for that particular time for their spotters, by the detective agency, which neverthe- less kept the patronage of said road to this day, but the railway company discharged the conductors, blaming them solely for the scheme!!! He will be pushed to go for his man, and if he go for him, there is an uprising to know why he does not go for that other? and if he go for him his toes are trodden upon by some of his good friends who first said "bully-boy." If he reports and prosecutes offending employes as his agency requires him, in nine cases out of ten he gets dropped on and thus gets of less value; if he is not broke. in or liked by his agency, or don't do it their way, a clamor arises that he is stirring up a strife; and if he do not re- port and complain, and prosecute, as the agency required, there is a noise because he is so still. Today his agency sends him an epistle, threatening him with an ouster if he do not push things, "that the railway company would hardly be satisfied with his work," etc., they thought; tomorrow he receives an anonymous one from some railway employe threatening him with a gun-shot if he do not stop pushing. If he be alert and go without sleep and meals to run down a malfeasant employe, he is taunted by his agency with 6 174 JUDAS EXPOSED, 华 ​running up an expense bill; if he do not run for the mal- feasant employe, he is either too lazy or a fool, or a mal- feasant himself (see pages 123--125 also page 73 section 133 of Z.'s system of secret service.) If he holds on to his job the spotters hold on because there is a million it, if he talks of giving it up, he is a pretty man who would quit the business just when the de- tective agency wants him most. Nor is this exaggeration, the peculiar not to say exasperating experience of an active determined detective, out everywhere over the roads, at dif- ferent places continually, is a change of excitement quite impossible to overstate. The slings and arrows of a cer- tain outrageous fortune, he certainly has to bear. It is easy enough to say that all this fault-finding with him is harmless. Grant it to be harmless, is it not harrowing? It is easy enough to say that if he does not like it, he need not endure it. He is too poor. To his praise be it said, he does like, likes the business of spotter. If he did not the detective agency would speedily see the necessity of finding someone who did, someone who not only liked the business, but knowing how, would dare to do it. The de- tective agency when it gets a good, plucky and conscientious detective, who will do his duty merely and snap his fingers at fault-finders, better keep him, but it (agency) don't, and build a monument to his memory when he dies prematurely from overwork in the ungracious cause. } OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 175 I THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN HARRASSED BY DETEC- TIVES. و (FROM "THE GREAT STRIKE ON THE "Q." } BY JOHN A. HALL.) July 5th, J. A. Bowles, Thos. Broderick and J. Q. Wil- son were arrested on the train leaving Aurora, at 2:15 P. M., by Deputy Marshal Burchard and Superintendent Mc- Ginty of the P- detective agency. A package of some substance, said to be dynamite, was taken from the rack over the seat occupied by Wilson. They were arraigned before United States Commissioner Hoyne, under section 5353, United States Statutes, which provides a penalty of $1000 to $10,000 fine for transporting or having in posses- sion dynamite on trains or vessels carrying passengers. Chairman Hoge was sent for, but when he learned the gravity of the charge against the prisoners he had little comfort to give them but promised to secure an attorney if he found on investigation that their cause was worthy. All three of the men denied ownership of the package found in the rack. Bowles came to Aurora at the beginning of the strike and ran an engine for thirteen days. His brother finally induced him to leave the service of the company and he was taken into the Brotherhood Division at Aurora. The Burlington officials testified that Broderick was in their employ as late as April last, two months after the strike I JUDAS EXPOSED, 176 1 1 began. Wilson was a P detective. seen that the trio were Burlington and P The company claimed that dynamite was used at Eola, West Aurora, Galesburg and Creston, to blow up and wreck trains, but that no damage was done except to a portion of a flange of an engine wheel at Eola. In some of these cases a portion of the dynamite was found unexploded, together with parts of the wrapper. If this stuff had really been dynamite, it is impossible to conceive how part of the cartridge would have remained unexploded. J. A. Bauereisen, chief of the Aurora division of B. of L. E. was arrested July 6, as an accomplice, it having been claimed that Bowles received the package from him before starting for Chicago with Wilson and Broderick. Thus it will be -employes. - Alexander Smith was arrested July 6. Smith is a fire- man and was charged with having handled the dynamite in connection with the explosion at Eola and West Aurora. Attorneys Donahue and David were retained for the defense of these men. Chairman Hoge stated that the Brotherhood did not tolerate violence of any kind, and would not come to the assistance of any member caught in the act of committing crime. The Brotherhood would look into these cases and if satisfied that the men were victims of a conspiracy it would aid and defend them, but if it were shown that they had explosives and meant violence, they would be left to shift for themselves. At this time Mr. Hoge was charged by the Burlington people with having issued a circular April 16, to the various divisions of the Brotherhood, advising that a large number of engineers go to work for the road, and, after disabling as many engines as possible with sal- soda and emory, to quit in a body. Mr. Hoge denies hav- ing written the circular or having signed it, and stated that OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 177 it was a forgery, if it existed at all. However, Hoge and Chairman Murphy of the firemen were arrested July 10 for conspiracy and held under the Merrit law in bonds of $1500, which was furnished by W. R. Fitzgerald. The complaint alleged that the defendants issued a circular with the fraudulent or malicious intent, wrongfully and wickedly to injure the property of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The penalty upon conviction is five years in the penitentiary or a fine of $2000, or both. The warrant also contained the names of John J. Kelly and J. H. McGilvery, secretaries to Hoge and Murphy, who were arrested later in the day, but not locked up. Kelly made a statement to the effect that he issued the circular at the dictation of Hoge, and that the latter signed it. It was written with hektograph ink and copied on a hektograph. Kelly also swore that he had been in the employ of P- for several months, during which time he acted as secre- tary to Hoge. This man belonged to the Brotherhood of Firemen, but was running a switch engine on the "Q" in Chicago, and at the time of the strike was taken into the Brotherhood of Engineers. He is a tall, lender man of twenty-seven or twenty-eight years, blonde, very natty in appearance, small brown moustache, light eyes inclined to be deep set, and a clear, ringing voice, like the voice of a woman. He was considered of a giddy, frothy nature by his intimates, who were surprised at his ability to keep secret the fact that he was in the employe of P- George Godding, an engineer, was arrested in Aurora, July 9, charged with Bauereisen in violating the United States law in handling dynamite. George Clark, an engineer, was arrested at Galesburg, July 17, charged with the same offence. During the exam- ination of these men, Bowles, Smith, Wilson, Kelly and 178 JUDAS EXPOSED, McGilvery (five spotters) appeared with the prosecution as detectives and informers. Bauereisen was tried and sen- tenced to two years imprisonment, at the last term of Kane County Court, at Geneva, Ill. He was convicted on the testimony of the informers and P men, Bowles, Bro- derick, Smith and Wilson. The weight of evidence was clearly in favor of Bauereisen, but the fact that it was a Kane county jury, and that the Burlington company was the prosecutor settled the case against him. An appeal for a new trial is now pending. — None of the other cases have matured and probably never will. The general opinion of the strikers, and those who have been particularly interested in those cases, can be summed up in a few words. Knowing that the strike had financially wrecked the property, the management found it necessary to make capital for themselves and concluded that a dynamite scheme would answer their purpose. They believed that the Brotherhood were a law-abid- ing class of citizens, and that they would be dumbfounded at the evidence of a dynamite plot, and immediately de- clare the strike off. That it was originally intended as a bluff is proven by the low grade of dynamite used which had scarcely the explosive power of black powder. The evidence shows that the "Q" employes and the detectives procured and used the stuff without effect. The only evi- dence against the Brotherhood was that they had been told by these spys what they were doing; and while the defend- ants placed no reliance in the story this knowledge was con- sidered sufficient evidence of guilt to hold them as accom- plices. This course was probably decided upon when it was found impossible to make them active participants in the crime. OR THE SPOTTER NUISANCE. 179 In the case of Hoge and Murphy the web was easier to weave. Having a P man as Hoge's secretary, it was a simple matter to put up a fraudulent circular, and back it up with the utterance of other confederates (spot- ters) who visited him, and sought to induce him to resort to violence as a means of compelling a settlement of the strike. DETECTIVES WANTED! For the new branch of Zeal's private detective agency, recently established at Portland, Oregon, to attend to con- fidential business. The confidential business to consist of following up young men earning beggar's wages and crawl- ing under beds to get evidence against a husband or wife. NOTE :—The kind of men who follow this business are the kind that most men or judges would not believe under oath. They will swear to any or everything in order that they might gain their point and fee. No honorable man would have any connection with this style and mode of business. THE END. wor wkt 150 не hep P UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA wils 385.5 W56 Wheeler, Martin P. Judas exposed; or, The spotter nuisance; 3 1951.002 160 094 J WILSON ANNEX 2 3 4 QUAWN 0123456 4 PT 6 PT 4 PT 6 PT 8 PT 10 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 0123456 MESH 4 PT 6 PT 8 PT 10 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 65 85 Spectra 100 110 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",/?$0123456789 133 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:”,./?$0123456789 4 PT 6 PT 8 PT 10 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 150 0123456 Times Roman ONTON={ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:',./?$0123456789 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:'../?$0123456789 4 PT 6 PT 8 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 10 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 AIIM SCANNER TEST CHART #2 4 PT 6 PT 8 PT 10 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 Century Schoolbook Bold ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 News Gothic Bold Reversed ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:'',/?$0123456789 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:',./?$0123456789 Bodoni Italic 8 PT ΑΒΓΔΕΞΘΗΙΚΛΜΝΟΠΦΡΣΤΥΩΧΨΖαβγδεξθηικλμνοπφρστυωχψζ37",/Σ+++><><>< 10 PT ΑΒΓΔΕΞΘΗΙΚΛΜΝΟΠΦΡΣΤΥΩΧΨΖαβγδεξθηικλμνοπφρστυώχψζ27",/St=7°><><Ξ QUAWN-- ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?80123456789 1 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789 Greek and Math Symbols ABгAEZOHIKAMNOIIPPETYMX¥Zaßyde§0nikλµvo#Opoτvwx¥(≥F",/≤±=#°><><><Ξ White HALFTONE WEDGES 1 | I | Black O5¬♡NTC Isolated Characters e 4 8 3 5 σ 9 1 6 0 2 7 h 3 0 I a 。 B EXTAWN-I 654321 A4 Page 8543210 65432 A4 Page 6543210 A4 Page 6543210 ©B4MN-C 65432 ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ONE LOMB MEMORIAL DRIVE, ROCHESTER, NEW YORK 14623 032E ▸ 1253 223E 3 3EB 4 E25 5 523 6 2E5 SBE 9 7863 5 SER 8532 9538 10 EBS Set 17 ⌉书​版​嘟 ​155自​杂 ​14 E2 S 1323S 12E25 11ES2 10523 ESTO 5836 BONEM 835E 7832 0723 ₪32wy ת ◄ 2350 0123460 6 E38 5 582 4 283 7E28 8B3E 5326 10: 3 32E மய ND OEZE 1328 2 E32 3 235 4 538 5 EBS 6 EB TOON TYWES 16 ELE 15853 14532 13823 12ES2 11285 1053B SBE6 8235 7523 PRODUCED BY GRAPHIC ARTS RESEARCH CENTER RIT ALPHANUMERIC RESOLUTION TEST OBJECT, RT-1-71