n justice to the many thousands of P___n
porters, as well as many conductors, who were in the habit of retaining the company's money, let it be said that they are not the hungry thieves and dishonest rogues the general public might think them to be, dishonest as their conduct may seem to be. They were victims of a vicious system built up and winked at by the company itself.
Before the day of the Inter-State Commerce Commission and anti-pass and two-cent-per-mile legislation, and when passengers paid cash fares, it was a matter of tradition with the conductors to knockdown, and nothing was said, although the conductors, as now, were fairly well paid and the company fully expected to lose some of the cash fares.
In the case of the porters, however, the circumstances are far more mitigating. At the time I was with the company there were, in round numbers, eight thousand porters in the service on tourist and standard sleepers who were receiving from a minimum of twenty-five dollars to not to exceed forty dollars per month, depending on length and desirability of service. Out of this he must furnish, for the first ten years, his own uniforms and cap, consisting of summer and winter suits at twenty and twenty-two dollars respectively. After ten
