OCR Text |
Show TfAIR- FARESPOTTEiT The Way a Woman Detects Dishonest Oar Conductors Bobbing Their Companies. SHE HAS A EEMAEZABLE MEM0ET. She Always Pays Her Fare and Eide? With Different Men-Ways to Cheat. I met a female spotter and was surprised sur-prised to learn to what an extent this system of espionage is carried on by the principal horse car lines in the city. The young woman detective with whom I came in contact was an exceedingly prepossessing pre-possessing looking girl, quietly dressed in a gray cloth gown, with small round hat to match. "Oh, the queer things I see and the queer things I do," she quoted laughingly, laugh-ingly, with a pretty gesture of perplexity. perplex-ity. "My varied experiences would fill a good sized volume. But conio up to my rooms while I talk. My hours are from 11 to 4, so as it is now 5 o'clock I am at liberty until to-morrow jgjorning." She led the way up to a small flat in West Fifty-sixth street, furnished in a dainty, inexpensive manner, with evidences evi-dences of a refined mind and cultivated taste. "There's only my mother, myself aud one big cat," she explained, and a jolly looking little dumpling of a woman came forward to greet us. She was evidently evi-dently an ardent admirer of her daughter's daugh-ter's prowess and capabilities. DANGER OF DISCOVERY. "We sit here and laugh by the hour after I get home over my day's adventuresdon't advent-uresdon't we, mother?" she rattled on. "Do you find it tedious or mind the position it places you in?" "Why, not a bit. I've become bo used to it now. Let me see, it's three years since I first began, and I haven't been found out yet. Of course it requires a great deal of tact and watchfulness to be able to go over the same road day after day and not be suspected by the different conductors, but I am very careful care-ful not to get on the same car more than once a day, though occasionally, if I take, say, car 49 down in the morning 1 can board the same one coming back at night, thus giving the impression that I have been down town to bnsiness all day." She said she made a point never to start at the beginning of the road nor to end at the terminus. "I have been engaged in this work so long now," she continued, "that I can tell at a distance whether my right car is coming or whether I have been a passenger pas-senger on it once before that day." The road officials always employ men as spotters during the early morning hours and later in the afternoon, the traffic during those portions of tho day being greater than at any other times, but in respect to the danger of discovery the intermediate hours, when the car takes on comparatively few passengers, are really the most risky. "Are you an expert?" "Well, yes, they do call me an expert, VV CU, J Va, IIIV-J" uu lUU mo ma i, but I was dreadfully nervous at first and painfully conscious. Every time tho conductor looked at me I expected to see him walk up, put his hand on my shoulder shoul-der and tell me that he knew just what I was there for, but this feeling gradually gradu-ally wore off until now I can look one square in the face and hand him my fare without even a quiver of the eyelids." DUTIES OF A SPOTTER. "What are you obliged to do?" "In the first place, I must take the conductor's number, and the number of the car. Naturally if I ride any distance dis-tance these can be easily remembered without the aid of pencil or paper. Then the passengers must be counted as they come in. At the beginning of my career I pursued quite a neat idea of turning over a leaf of the book I was pretending pretend-ing to read on the occasion of every fresh arrival; this action appeared natural nat-ural and conveyed the idea that I was carelessly scanning' the contents, but as time passed on I found I could rely on my memory more and more, until now 1 have no difficulty whatever in retaining large numbers in my head for any length of time." The fair spotter went on to say that there are always several spotters on one line, and each one takes a turn at every conductor in rotation. It wonld never do to stick to one tturing his entire trip, as he would soon find out the game; so when one spotter, for instance, watches him from Fourteenth to Thirtieth street and then gets off another 6potter takes his place within a radius of a few "Ifl am not mistaken," she continued, "I think there were eight discharged through my investigation during the first six months of my work, but whether it is due to their gradually becoming aware that they are being constantly and closely watehed or not, there is certainly cer-tainly 100 per cent, less cheating now than two years ago. Of the eight discharges dis-charges which I just mentioned five were for cheating, or 'knocking down,' as tbey call it; one for impudence to a lady passenger, one for drunkenness and the last for throwing a newsboy off the car under the wheels of a heavy cart and nearly causing his death." "Is it easy for conductors to defraud the company?" "" "You can have no Idea how easy it is for these men to cheat," she replied; "for instance, at the Grand Central depot, or at big shopping points, such as Fourteenth or Twenty-third street, at least a dozen or more will crowd into the car at once. What more easy than for the conductor to knock off a couple of fares? It only requires a second and it takes a very smart person to detect them sometimes." New York Journal. |