Ticket collector

“ Nowadays, when nearly all the omnibus companies issue tickets, you are not bound to show your tickets whenever they are demanded by a conductor or inspector, but it is wiser to do so because the absence of a ticket will generally be regarded by the magistrate as evidence of your not having paid your fare, and unless you have any friends travelling with you who are ready to come forward and swear that they saw you purchase a ticket, you will very likely be fined and have to pay costs as well. ”

“ The fact that the ticket must be delivered to the maker at the time of performance has an important effect upon the right secured by a railroad ticket. As performance is concurrent with surrender, performance must be regarded as a unit. As soon, therefore, as the passenger is received upon the train, and his carriage toward the point of destination begun, the contract secured by the ticket is performed; or, at least, the only right of the ticket-holder is to be carried through safely to his destination. Accordingly, a ticket is used as soon as the train starts on its journey ”

“ A railroad ticket, properly so called, is a contract obliging the railroad company to receive the bearer as a passenger. But when once the bearer is so received the obligation is satisfied, and all further rights of the passenger are secured by the custom of carriers, not by the ticket. The conductor should, therefore, cancel the ticket as soon as it is presented to him; and from that moment the ticket becomes (like the coupon on a theatre ticket) a mere voucher, held by the passenger for the convenience, chiefly, of the conductor, to show that the passenger is rightfully on the cars. ”

“ A GROWING LAD.
“This your boy, ma’am?” inquired a collector of a country woman, “he’s too big for a ’alf ticket.” “Oh, is he?” replied the mother. “Well, perhaps he is now, mister; but he wasn’t when he started. The train is ever so much behind time—has been so long on the road—and he’s a growing lad!”
FORGED TICKETS.
Attempts to defraud railway companies by means of forged tickets are seldom made, and still more seldom successful. In 1870, a man who lived in a toll-house near Dudley, and who rented a large number of tolls on the different turnpikes, in almost every part of the country, p. ”

“ One passenger may have dropped his ticket, and then comes a search among the hat-boxes and carpet-bags beneath the seats; another may have underpaid his fare, or overridden the power of his ticket, and then occurs the fuss of paying up the difference; a third may be sleeping weariedly in the further corner of the carriage, and then comes the process of waking him, followed, perhaps, by a search for the ticket in an incalculable number of pockets. ”

“ Although, I believe, it has been held by some courts that the increased rate cannot be collected unless every proper and reasonable facility has been afforded for procuring tickets at the station; [408] and that if a man, without [Pg 139] any default on his part, is prevented getting a ticket, he may pay the conductor the excess of fare under protest, and recover it back by suit, or else he may insist upon being taken at ticket rate, and sue for damages if the company refuse. ”

“ It is so everywhere. I apologize for disturbing a ticket agent long enough to sell me a ticket, and he tries to jump through a little brass wicket and throttle me. Other men come in and say: "Give me a ticket for Bandoline, O., and be dam sudden about it, too," and they get their ticket and go aboard the car and get the best seat, while I am begging for the opportunity to buy a seat at full rates and then ride in the wood-box. ”

“ A ticket is a formal document, valid and interpretable by some well-known business custom, requiring the party issuing it to do something, or to give something, not money, to the bearer at or within a certain time. It secures a future right to the bearer; thus differing from a receipt or voucher, which merely proves a right already secured.
The tickets in general use fall into four classes. By far the most important class consists of tickets which entitle the bearer to the service of the maker as carrier. ”

“ The Clerks at the several Stations are to deliver Tickets to all persons booking their places for conveyance by the Railway, and no person is to be allowed to pass on the platform without producing his Ticket.
26. If the Guard or Station Clerk have reason to suspect that any Passenger is or has been travelling upon the Railway without having paid any Fare or the proper Fare, he may require such person to produce his Ticket; and every Passenger before leaving the Company’s premises at the end of his journey is to be required to deliver up his Ticket. ”

“ But the appearance of the conductor at the forward end of the car, taking up the tickets, changed the current of her thoughts, and she commenced a violent demonstration upon her bag, her pocket, and her bundles, in search of her ticket.
Most of the passengers produced their tickets, conscious, perhaps, how nervous it makes the "gentlemanly conductor" when compelled to wait for excited men or women to search through all their pockets, and all their portable effects, for the evidence that they had paid their fare. ”

“ There is a railroad ticket office in the Barge Office, where all the trunk lines are represented by one general agent, a sort of pool, and here the immigrant can secure tickets to any point and have baggage checked to destination; and at no other place can tickets be procured at such low rates, nor can anyone but an immigrant get such a low rate. ”

“ Owing to the unlimited time for which tickets are available, and to other causes, a race of dealers in railway tickets has sprung up, who rejoice in the euphonious name of "scalpers," and often do a roaring trade in selling tickets at less than regular fares. Thus, if the fare from A to B be $10 and the return fare $15, it is often possible to obtain the half of a return ticket from a scalper for about $8. Or a man setting out for a journey of 100 miles buys a through ticket to the terminus of the line, which may be 400 miles distant. ”

“ It is only charitable to believe that the agent meant to say: “Remember that we are here to give information as well as to sell tickets,” for the giving of information is a function of a passenger ticket office. ”

“ It may seem hard to a man who has lost his ticket, or perhaps had it stolen from him, that he should have to pay his fare a second time; but it is better and more reasonable that a passenger should now and then have to suffer the consequences of his own want of care, than that a system (the system of issuing tickets as now in vogue) should be rendered impracticable, which seems necessary to the transaction of this important [Pg 118] branch of business. It is not for the sole advantage, or the pleasure and caprice of the railway company that these things are done in such a hurry. ”

“ Within this little window, like a pay-box at a theatre, a neat and brisk young woman presided to take money and issue tickets. Every one coming in must take a ticket. Either the fourpence-halfpenny ticket for the upper room (the most popular ticket, I think) , or a penny ticket for a bowl of soup, or as many penny tickets as he or she choose to buy. ”

“ Payment of the money to the ticket-agent does not, unless the payer secures a ticket, give the right to ride. [8] Nor has a ticket-holder in very many cases paid his fare; for instance, where a free pass is issued on some consideration, which is not the payment of fare, or where the purchaser of the ticket has sold or given it to the passenger. But the principal objection to the theory is this: it is impossible to pay for anything before one gets it. “Payment in advance,” so called, is really a payment which is the consideration of a promise to perform ”

“ And if you start to go to that country remember first you must sell everything you have, pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks, put the spot cash money in a ragbag and go to the railroad station and ask the ticket agent for a 17 long slick yellow leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it. ”

“ In our opinion the rate for a single fare for passengers generally may be varied so as to fit the particular and different service which involves, as do commutation rates, the disposition of tickets to passengers who have a peculiar relation to the service. The service rendered in selling a ticket for one continuous trip is quite different from that involved in disposing of commutation tickets where a single ticket may cover 100 rides or more within a limited period. ”

“ Any passenger who boards without a ticket, beyond the paid distance, in a higher class, or with a discounted ticket while he is unqualified therefor shall pay or make up for the difference in the ticket price, and the carrier may charge an extra fare according to the regulations. ”

“ A ticket to be good against the company requires some consideration to have been given for it, otherwise it may be repudiated by the company. A free pass, for instance, may be revoked at any moment until it is actually used. ”

“ If any Passenger shall refuse or be unable to produce a proper Ticket, or shall commit any other offence against the Bye-laws, Rules, and Regulations of the Company relating to Travellers by the Railway, the case shall be immediately investigated by the Chief Clerk of the Station where the occurrence may take place, who is to exercise his discretion as to the proceedings to be taken, always reporting what has been done. ”

“ As a matter of fact it is evident that a ticket derives all its validity from the custom. The necessary elements of a consensual contract are wanting. The ticket-agent is an agent to sell tickets, not to make contracts for his employer. [22] There is no communication between the contracting parties; the terms are fixed by the custom, and the obligee may be one who has bought the ticket, not from the party issuing it, but from a prior holder. Such a contract as this is, in its essence, a formal, not a consensual, contract. ”

“ If the ticket which was first drawn in fact, ought to be considered as entitled to the prize, as was first decided by the managers, then no irregularity whatever took place in their proceedings with regard to this ticket, and this objection is clearly at an end. If the last decision of the managers was right, still there was no irregularity in the drawing, unless the ticket No. 623 ought to have been restored to the wheel, and have taken its chance for a blank or a prize. We are not satisfied that the managers ought to have taken this course. ”

“ This would be simple enough bookkeeping if a good many years ago the interline or coupon ticket, entitling the bearer to ride upon several different roads, had not come into popularity. To apportion the revenue of a ticket between the half-dozen different lines upon which it has been used requires almost no end of system and accounting. ”

“ Having attracted the people, the next thing is to admit them in such a way that no one shall get in without paying or on a complimentary ticket, and that the tickets shall act as a check on the money-takers' accounts. We have seen amateur shows where the man at the door took money and tickets indifferently, so that the managers were entirely at the mercy of his honesty. It is therefore absolutely necessary that two persons should be at the door, one to take the tickets, the other to sell them, and no person should be admitted except by a ticket of some sort. ”

“ On some lines they use tickets showing the amount each passenger pays, but a conductor sometimes forgets to hand you a ticket. An Inspector will occasionally mount a ’bus to see that all the passengers are supplied with tickets, and then the conductor with a treacherous memory has reason to be sorry. ”

“ In addition, the tip or extra fee increases the cost of the ticket, errors in "duplicate sales" are made more frequent, and a critical and unfriendly feeling is created in the mind of the passenger who has been unable to secure a "lower" on early application at the ticket office, but was able perhaps to secure one at train time from the unused tickets turned in by hotel porters. Naturally the feeling is created that the railroad or Pullman agents are holding back space for a tip or a favorite, and "playing favorites" is never popular with the public. ”

“ As the ticket only means passage money, and the traveller is charged, as in an hotel, for what he eats and drinks, he, at any rate, is not tormented by the thought that he has paid for that which he has not received. ”

“ A ticket for one penny will entitle the holder to enter any Local train at any station, and to travel in it to any other station at which it stops, and a ticket for sixpence will entitle him to travel first class in such train if that accommodation is provided. ”

“ Great confidence is expressed in the personal fitness of the party addressed, who is requested to act as agent for the sale of the tickets. A few weeks later another letter is sent to the intended victim, informing him that the ticket of a given number forwarded to him at such a date had drawn a prize, the value of which is variously stated from a few hundred to many thousand dollars. ”

“ The letter was addressed to ‘Miss Duke, The Cedars, Hampstead, London.’ Both note and letter are enclosed herewith.
“The tickets on this route are dealt with as follows: There is no check on passengers leaving the wharf, as this would entail too long a delay at the gangway. On coming on board, passengers apply at the chief steward’s office, have their tickets either collected or punched, and get their berth numbers and a landing ticket. The landing tickets are collected as the travellers go ashore, and this constitutes the check that all have paid for their passage. ”