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Show DANGEROUS WORK IN LOCAL YARDS i Peril in Which the Railroad Officers Labor and the Tough Gangs That They Encounter Holdups and Robberies That 'Are Never Reported. "We never unnecessarily club a tramp for trespassing In the Harrl-man Harrl-man yards " This is the statement of F. C. Shu-maker, Shu-maker, chief watchman on tho Harri-man Harri-man lines of this city, who takes exception ex-ception to the alleged inferences of Ogden authorities that the railroad police are unneceusaril v brutal In their treatment of men who are wandering wan-dering about in search of employment. employ-ment. It is Officer Shumaker s duty to protect pro-tect railroad property In the Ogden yards, which extend from Twenty-first Twenty-first street to Thirtieth street. In this district there are at all times from 700 to 1.000 cars of merchandise, and this property is protected only by the lre seals with which the car doors are locked. ' There are only four of us officers," offi-cers," said Officer Shumaker this morning, in refuting the inference of brutality," and there arc but few lights in the yards. Every night we encounter from twenty-five to fifty tramps. It is natural to presume that many of these men are desperate characters and that orr work of pro teeting the railroad's property calls at times for radical measures on our part. Many of these tramps are not merely unemployed men, but are criminals of the roughest type. Some of them are petty thieves, who steal any small thing they can get their hands on, not only (rem the railroad company, but from the people living along the right of way. i "Some of them," repeated the watchman, dropping into the parlance of the tramp world, "never hit the town at all. They cook up a Mulligan Mulli-gan in the Jungles and camp there. The jungles are what we call the bushes along the rlvrr. They have a tort of camp or hangout where- there are many of them. And there many of the chickens missed by Ogden people peo-ple are cooked and eaten. The outside out-side officers aren't around to see what's going on. Nearly every night I there is a hold-up or some kind of robbery committed in the yard". Why, one man, an emploi of the company, was held up and robbed not long ago within one hundred yards of the office. of-fice. "There are do city officers on the viaduct and there Is hardly a night passes that some kind of crime is not committed there. The city officers never hear or It. We never call the Ogden police to help us out. yet we are often shot at and have rocks and bolts thrown at us almost every night. Our lives are constantly In danger, for we have got to take all kinds of chances. We cant bov: a whistle, and have a patrol wagon to our assistance as-sistance In a few minutes, and we are not working on a lighted street, but among cars, where an officer might he murdered and no one find his body until tbe next morning. "We know that there is no use In arresting men, as the Jail Is full, and we have to keep the men out of the yards by Jut chasing them out. At times we have had to club men. but we always tell a fellow to get out before be-fore we use any harsher method. It' a man won't got out when told to do to. we have to use force. If we catch a man or a gang of men breaking Into p. car, we must stop the robbery. Sometimes this means one of us against half a dozen thieves, and It s dangerous business. Just last week one of my men quit because of the danger there Is in the work. "We realize as well as any one that nil of the men who are riding freight trains are not bad men. We know that many of them are merely unemployed unem-ployed workers looking for a job and we don't start to clubbing a man as ! soon as we see that he Is a tramp. We don't like to be looked upon by j the public as brutes, for we are not, I If the city police and Ihe general public pub-lic knew what we have to contend with In our work, thev would not blame us for occasionally using a little lit-tle force In keeping the yards free of trespassers who are In the yards for no pood purpose." Oificer ShiimaVer told of a number of attf mptfd robberies that were only prevented by the timely arrival of one of the railroad police. He told of a. gang of toughs attacking a few .Tap-anece .Tap-anece laborers with the intent to rob them, and sni.l that oftentimes the railroad officers ore called on by citizens citi-zens o chase vagrants out of town because be-cause of persistent annoyancf-s. I |