"Well, I'll tell ye. When a conductor is put on a road he has to wait his turn before getting a car; it may be a month or six weeks before he is regularly on. He'll have to know the ropes or he'll be shelved before he knows it. He'll have to be a thief from the start or leave the road. His pay is $2 to $2.25 per day. Out of that sum he must pay the driver from $1 to $2 a day; the starter he has to conciliate in various ways. A lump of stamps is better than drinks and cigars, though drinks and cigars have a good deal of influence on the roads; and then the 'spotter' has to get $5 every week." "Why do the conductors allow themselves to be imposed on in this way?" "Why? Because they can't help it. If they don't pay the driver, the driver will not stop for passengers, and the conductor is short in his returns; if they don't have a 'deal' with the starter, the starter will fix him somehow. You see the driver can stop behind time, or go beyond it if he likes. The latest car in the street, you understand, gets the most passengers. So it is that the drivers who are feed by the conductors stay from two to five minutes behind time, to the inconvenience of passengers, but to the profit of the driver, the conductor, the starter, the spotter, and for all I know, the superintendent and president of the company. It is a fine system from beginning to end. The amount of drink disposed of by some of the fellows in authority is perfectly amazing. I know a starter to boast of taking fifteen cocktails (with any number of lagers between drinks) in a day, and all paid for by the 'road;' for, of course, the conductors saved themselves from loss. Oh, yes, you bet they did! The conductor's actual expenses a day average $5; his pay is $2.25, which leaves a fine tail-end margin of profit. How the expenses are incurred I have told you. What ken a man do? Honesty? No man can be honest and remain a conductor. Conductors must help themselves, an' they do! Why, even the driver who profits by the conductor's operations, has to fee the stablemen, else how could he get good horses? Stablemen get from $1 to $2 per week from each driver." "Then the system of horse railroad management is entirely corrupt?" "You bet. 'Knocking down' is a fine art, as they say: but it is not confined to the conductors. The worst thing about the car business though, and what disgusted me while I was in it, was the thieves." "The thieves?" "Ay, the thieves. The pick-pockets, a lot of roughs get on your car, refuse to pay their fares, insult ladies, and rob right and left. If you object you are likely to get knocked on the head; if you are armed and show fight you are attacked in another way. The thieves are (or rather they were until lately) influential politicians, and tell you to your face that they'll have you dismissed. Ten to one they do what they say. I tell ye a man ought to have leave to knock down lively to stand all this." II. THE STAGES.