paper entering at one end from rolls and railroads justified the building of expenthe tickets coming out at the other end printed in three colors on one side and two on the other and numbered consecutively.

Of course other presses are slower, owing to the character of the work, but there are few that cannot turn out from 8,000 to 15,000 tickets a day.

sive printing plants, but the prices, instead of increasing like other manufactured articles, have decreased, so much so, indeed, that tickets are now turned out at about one-fifth the price of ten years ago.

At the same time, the value of labor and cost of stock have risen some nearly Accuracy is the first law of the ticket fifty per cent. In view of this situation, printer. The correct printing of an the majority of ticket printers, so an order, outside of men and machinery, de- authority on the subject alleges, have inpends on the general instructions given vested more money and are getting a by the railroads. It is, therefore, neces- smaller return than many other business sary to carry a vast amount of detailed men. instructions that deal with the special One of the outcomes of this condition needs or printing peculiarities of each renders it almost impossible for a new road. firm to compete in the ticket-printing

In fact, the printer knows almost as business. The investment necessary, the well as the stock ticket-clerk himself limited profit and the dufficulty of obwhat a given road requires or is likely taining experienced help would make the to require. This explains why there is venture doubtful.

no other branch of the printing business An important item of ticket-making in which the printer assumes the same is the material on which they are amount of responsibility. In nine cases printed. Almost every kind of ticket reout of ten no definite instructions are quires a different sort of stock. Thus, in given with each order, but, instead, a the case of those that are in continuous reference to numbers and letters is used. use, such as the commutation, it is necesWhile the minutest care is taken dur- sary that its texture shall be able to ing the process of manufacture to pre stand constant handling. vent mistakes in numbering-either by the machinery missing or duplicating the tickets are counted and verified twice before going to the shipping table. When in the hands of the shipping force, they are again checked twice against the order and the top and bot tom tickets of each package inspected. The result is that mighty few mistakes are made when compared with the enor. mous number of tickets turned out.

Printers Old in the Work. Next to bonds and bank-notes, the production of railroad tickets calls for skill, care and faithfulness, so much so that it is to the interest of the printer to hold together those members of his working force who are familiar with this branch of his business.

The coupon or interline tickets are printed on a thin, wear-resisting paper. Other stock is of such a quality that it allows an easy separation of the perforated portions of a ticket.

Interline tickets are printed on a specially made "safety" paper that bears the water-mark of the Association of General Passenger and Ticket Agents. It is manufactured by a certain responsible firm chosen by the association.

Special Paper Closely Watched. Only printers who have been licensed by the association can purchase this paper, and the purchasers are bonded in order that they may abide by the rules and regulations of the association to safeguard the paper and protect the finished tickets.

As a rule, therefore, the employees in The involved geometrical design on the department are old-timers. They are the background of this paper defies imicarried on the pay-rools all the year tation. Any attempt at erasure or alterround. ation by mechanical means is impossiThere is one singular phase of ticket ble. The ink used in tracing the design printing that warrants a reference. also aids in thwarting the dishonest, and Once upon a time, the prices paid by the if chemicals are used there is an imme

diate discoloration of the paper that is from their lines over connecting roads. unmistakable. Such tickets consist of a string of coupons headed by the name of the issuing road, and the contract under which it is sold. A coupon is provided for every railroad over which the passenger is carried.

With local tickets, the background design is familiar to conductors, and is an insurance against fraud.

Some railroads have certain marks on the face of their tickets known only to their ticket departments and conductors.

The coupons are returned by the conDuring the past few years, attempts ductors and agents to the auditing deat counterfeiting or the misuse of rail- partments of their several roads, each road tickets have been reduced to a min- department collecting its portion of the imum, due to the elaborate precautions fare from the railroad that issued the to prevent fraud. Where stations are ticket. burglarized and tickets stolen, it is a comparatively easy matter for the plunder to be rendered valueless by the methods now in use. The forged ticket is almost an impossibility for the same

reason.

Recently, an issue of fraudulent tickets was detected by one word of the dating stamp used by the thieves differing in size from that of the genuine stamp. Imprints of one railroad's stamps are kept on record in the ticket departments of all other roads.

The one-time flourishing business of ticket-scalping is dead. Long-distance tickets were favored by the scalpersthe special coupon tickets issued for conventions and expositions being the trumps of the game. Such coupons were invariably sold at lower rates than the ordinary fare.

The coupons are then placed on file and kept for a certain period, so that in the event of mistake or dispute on the part of any of the auditors, they may be "matched up" on the ticket to which they belonged.

Interline tickets are issued for the convenience of all classes of travelers, from the immigrant to the passenger on limited trains. In many instances, the contracts that head the tickets differ in accordance with the class of traveler to whom they are issued.

Boiling Down the Contracts.

Such contracts deal with the conditions under which the railroad agrees to transport passengers from one point to another and represent the gigantic work of legal brains to compress into a few words the intent of the laws.

This easy money game has been elim- The lawyers of the General Passeninated because the railroads now insist ger and Ticket Agents' Association are that the original purchaser of a ticket constantly engaged in trying to boil shall attach his signature thereto and he must sign his name whenever requested by conductors and agents. Any passenger signing the name of another is liable to be prosecuted for forgery.

As to the different kinds of tickets in use, the card or local ticket is used in largest numbers. Millions are sold every day. While the distance over which its holder may travel may be longer or shorter, it is confined to one railroad or system of railroads, hence the term "local."

down the printed contracts still further and yet comply with the statute that compels the road to furnish the passengers with a resume of the laws that govern the contracts.

That the lawyers are successful is shown by the fact that only a few years ago the contract on an interline ticket took up many inches of space. At present it doesn't call for a third as much space.

The color of commutation tickets is changed monthly in order that conducThe clauses, condensed contracts, and tors may recognize them at a glance. other matters printed on all tickets, are Some railroads use patented tickets for based on the laws of the State or States local purposes, especially to points through which runs the railroad issuing where the travel is light. Such tickets them. include the Simplex, Lomax, and DrewInterline or coupon tickets are used ery forms. The idea in all of them is by railroads for ticketing passengers pretty much the same. The starting

point of the traveler is printed at the

The ticket department of a railroad is Leisure cannot find top, and in the center are the names of a place of hustle. all stations on the line. A cutter or a perch on which to roost therein. From punch is supplied to the agent, permit- ceiling to floor it is filled with the stir of ting him to cut the ticket at any destina- industry. tion printed on it. For this reason, so the advocates of these tickets say, it is only necessary to carry one of these tickets in place of the dozens of ordinary These tickets for different destinations. patented tickets are so arranged that it is impossible for the agent to punch the passenger's portion differently from that of the auditor's, and the possibility of dishonesty is eliminated.

Keeping Track of Mileage Books.

It handles every detail and to tickets, ticket appliance relating cases, punches, rubber and metal stamps, indelible inks, ink pads, and stationery. Keeping Records of the Tickets. constantly Its bookkeeping system connects it with the station agents, and

it discounts sudden demands on its facil

ities, due to events of public importance, by keeping tab on them and on the men who supply the tickets.

The establishment of the status of a ticket in accordance with the requirements of the laws of the State or States through which its holder is to travel, is created by the legal representatives of the Association of General Passenger and Ticket agents, but the passenger rates are made by the general passenger

A large number of the mileage books manufactured for the railroads are under the jurisdiction of the trunk line associations operating in certain parts of the country, especially the middle West. Such books are good on the railroads inIcluded in any such associations. Here again the lynx-eyed auditing depart- agent. New conditions arising in the territory traversed by the line, rivalry These departments must see that all of other roads and a half dozen other detachments taken up by the conductors considerations may call for a change in of their roads from mileage books issued the price of a ticket that may create a by other roads, are accounted for, and howl of protest or a pæan of praise in that the selling railroad reimburses to the public. the last penny.

ments get busy.

The clerical ticket entitles its owner to travel at half the regular local rates. It is not usually good for a "stop-over," but in all other respects it has all the privileges of a first-class ticket. A conductor who suspects the authenticity of

a

While, as a rule, there is no stated time set. for agents to report on their stock of tickets, they are supposed to send in their requisitions on the ticket department three weeks ahead of the possible exhaustion of their stock.

Outside of the usual business, the person who presents one of these agent is expected to include in his requitickets is authorized by his road to de- sition provision against extraordinary mand immediate proof of the passenger's calls on his stock due to political meetidentity. ings, county fairs, and other events of Workmen's tickets are limited to spe- public interest. Traveling passenger cified trains. Having no contract at- agents also report on prospective detached, they are simply stamped with mands on tickets at given stations, due the dating stamp on the back of each to the same causes. While there is no

coupon.

Family tickets are issued between certain stations of a railroad, usually those included in the commutation zones. They are valid for the passage of the purchaser, a member of his family, a visitor, or a servant. These tickets vary from fifty trips upward.

limit placed on the number of tickets that an agent may request, his request is subjected to the approval of the manager of the department.

Each requisition is made on an official form, every item being on a separate line and giving the number of the last ticket of the specified kind required by An editorial ticket is only good for the the agent, also the last progressive numperson or persons in whose name it is ber of the tickets on hand.

issued.

(To be continued.)

Two decisions of the United States Supreme Court handed down April 27th last, have greatly impaired the Federal Employers' Liability Law, an act passed as a result of about twenty years of constant effort on the part of railroad labor organizations and regarded generally as invulnerable.

John Joseph Behrens was employed by the Illinois Central Railroad Company as a fireman on a switch engine in the city of New Orleans. He was killed in a head-on collision caused by the company's negligence. As the Illinois Central is an interstate railroad his administrator brought suit in the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, under the Federal Employers' Liability Law to recover damages for his death. It was shown at the trial that when the collision occurred the engine on which Fireman Behrens was working was hauling thirteen cars loaded with sugar, which shipment originated within the State and was destined to another point within the State, viz., Chalmette. The crew had instructions to pick up other cars either loaded or empty at Chalmette which belonged to various railroad companies and take them to Harahan, La. and turn them over to the yard master at that point for delivery to various railroad systems to be transported to points both within and without the State. The circuit court being undecided as to whether or not suit under the circumstances characterizing this accident could be properly filed under the Federal

The

Employers' Liability Law, certified the case to the Supreme Court of the United States for an opinion on the question as to whether at the time of the injury resulting in his death Fireman Behrens was employed in interstate commerce within the meaning of the Employers' Liability Act approved April 22, 1908, and the decision of the Supreme Court which was unanimous was that he was not at the time employed in interstate commerce. decision which was delivered by Justice Van Devanter is in part as follows: "Considering the status of the railroad as a highway for both interstate and intrastate commerce, the interdependence of the two classes of traffic in point of movement and safety, the practical difficulty in separating or dividing the general work of the switching crew, and the nature and extent of the power confided to Congress by the commerce clause of the Constitution, we entertain no doubt that the liability of the carrier for injuries suffered by a member of the crew in the course of its general work was subject to regulation by Congress, whether the particular service being performed at the time of the injury, isolatedly considered, was in interstate or intrastate commerce

Passing from the question of power to that of its exercise, we find that the controlling provision in the act of April 22, 1908, reads as follows:

.

"That every common carrier by railroad while engaged in commerce between any of the several States .shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce. Giving the words 'suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce' their natural meaning, as we think must be done, it is clear that Congress intended to confine its action to injuries occurring when the particular service in which the employe is engaged is a part of interstate commerce

Here, at the time of the fatal injury the intestate was engaged in moving several cars, all loaded with intrastate freight, from one part of the city to another. That was not a service in interstate commerce, and so the injury and resulting death were not within the statute. That he was expected, upon the completion of that task, to engage in another which would have been a part of interstate commerce is immaterial under the statute, for by its terms the true test is the nature of the work being done at the time of the injury."

Attorney Armand Romain for the administrator in his brief to the Supreme Court, said in part:

"The services rendered by Behrens and his crew being so inseparably blended and intermingled in their intrastate and interstate aspects, that the company itself could not prescribe one mode of operation for one, without seriously affecting, delaying hindering or interfering with the other, how can it be expected that the courts will endeavor to segregate the one from the other, and to split up the services rendered by Behrens into various subdivisions lasting possibly only a few minutes each, during which the Federal Act would apply, followed by other intervals of labor where only the State law would control

He contended that to do this "would make of an employe's legal status, with reference to protection and right of recovery in event of injury, a chameleon-like fiction, appearing now dark, then light, at one minute, unfavorable, and at the next favorable, continually changing in aspect during the hours of the night, kaleidoscopic and confused throughout his tour of duty, depending upon the complexion of the freight handled and the exact time of any particular occurrence, all of which is beyond the power of the employer to regulate, and entirely beyond the knowledge and control of the employes, whom Congress expressly desired to protect."

This argument, however, evidently did not have the weight with the Supreme Court that did that of the attorney for the company, who in reply thereto in his brief, said in part:

"This, however, of course abandons entirely the test of the character of the employment at the time of the injury, and substitutes therefor a doctrine of status, of which it is to be said that it is certainly not the one which Congress has fixed upon. Since the facts make it perfectly plain that Behrens was engaged in intrastate commerce at the time he was killed (indeed it would be difficult to conceive of a clearer case) aside from the constitutional question involved, the reason why the court should attempt to separate and distinguish between interstate and intrastate commerce is that Congress has made liability turn upon that distinction. The light of modern thought and opinion' might well be directed to an efficient Workmen's Compensation Act instead of the present crude Employers' Liability Act. The particular defect in the statute, that it does not apply when the employer is engaged in intrastate commerce, is fundamental, so far as the present act is concerned. A man is not 'employed' in interstate commerce except when he is engaged in interstate com

merce