and I certify that they have been examined and found correct. Station, day of.. Division, 19 Agent. The tickets enumerated on this invoice must be carefully examined. If any are missing. mutilated, deplicated, incorrectly or imperfectly printed, as to reading or numbers, or in any manner rendered unfit for sale; or if the reading on the tickets does not correspond in all respects with the description given on invoice. Agent should withhold signature and communicate with the General Passenger Agent and have the irregularity corrected. If necessary to hold invoice beyond a reasonable time. Anditor of Passenger Receipts should be advised of delay. No marks or notations of any kind should be made on invoices, except the ordinary checa marks. This invoice must be receipted with pen and ink by Agent (not. by an assistant, clerk or substitute, unless specially authorized), and promptly forwarded to Anditor of Passenger Receipts in envelope. A D. 7000 (formerly G-200-A. P. R.). FORM 31. ductor, who promptly turns them over with a trip report direct to the Auditor of Passenger Receipts or to a Ticket Receiver. Cash fares are similarly turned over to Ticket Receivers by the conductor with the proper portions of the duplex memorandums and train excursion tickets which he has issued. The cash is deposited in a local bank each day, while the conductor's reports, memoranda and train excursion tickets, are forwarded to the Auditor of Passenger Receipts. The conductor later makes a monthly report showing all cash delivered to the Ticket Receiver. Ticket Receivers are located only at large stations or divisional terminals, and their work is to receive cash collections, tickets and reports from the conductors, examine and send the tickets and reports to the Auditor of Passenger Receipts, deposit the cash in a bank, issue train excursion tickets and duplex memoranda to conductors, act as bureaus of information to them, and sometimes to arbitrate between them and passengers in case of disputes as to tickets. In this way, the ticket makes a circuit from the Passenger Traffic Department around to the Auditor of Passenger Receipts, and a check upon it is kept during every step in its progress. V. TICKET BROKERAGE In spite of all precautions taken in the issuing of tickets, scalpers, or ticket brokers, for many years did a thriving business, and at some points still flourish. The most fruitful source of their supply lies in the return coupons of regular round-trip or excursion tickets. But limited or expired tickets, lost, stolen, or purchased passes issued to railway employees or newspaper editors, and mileage books were purchased by scalpers; and there have been instances of outright counterfeiting. In times past, unscrupulous railways have sold blocks of tickets at reduced rates as a means of undercutting regular, published fares. The methods pursued by the ticket brokers have ranged from the crude to the ingenious. Sometimes clearly worthless tickets were sold to ignorant travelers, but usually the aim has been to furnish tickets which will pass muster with the gateman and conductor. Nontransferable return coupons have been sold to travelers with little danger of detection; expired tickets have been plugged and repunched or redated, so as to extend their life; parts of several tickets have been pasted together to make a new one either of extended life or higher class; signatures of agents and purchasers have been forged; destinations and routes have been erased from skeleton tickets and others substituted; mileage books have been leased to many travelers under a system of rebate; and some tickets have been printed to order. At times ticket agents, gatemen, and conductors have been corrupted, while at others the methods employed have been so ingenious that only close scrutiny would reveal alterations or fraud. Various objections have been successfully raised against ticket brokerage: (1) It is dishonest, because it involves the use of a nontransferable ticket sold at a reduced rate with the understanding that it would be used by the purchaser, and because frequently it involves forgery and counterfeiting. (2) It interferes with the granting of regular reduced fares and excursion rates. (3) It wrongfully deprives the railways of legitimate revenue and interferes with their control over tickets. (4) It has sometimes been used as a means of undercutting published fares. The brokerage business gradually became so extensive, particularly on lines centering in Atlanta, Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Buffalo, Kansas City, Denver, Cincin nati, San Antonio, and New Orleans, that concerted preventive measures became necessary. It was stated in 1901 by a prominent ticket broker that there were then nearly 470" scalpers" in the United States. The individual carriers, moreover, reached a sound traffic basis which no longer induced them secretly to undercut competitors and to connive with the scalpers, who were thus deprived of one source of supply. The carriers also took more care in printing tickets and in tracing fraud. Many passenger traffic associations, likewise, began to combat the scalpers, earnestly discouraging all connivance on the part of the carriers, and making provision for the redemption of ticket coupons illegally issued or used. In 1903, the Railway Ticket Protective Bureau was organized, the policy and work of which was controlled by an executive committee consisting of the chairmen or commissioners of the various passenger associations. This bureau began by obtaining extensive data as to the location. and methods of the scalpers. It then instructed the carriers how to safeguard their tickets by calling in forms especially easy to alter and by using safety paper and inks. Conductors were provided with blank forms on which to gather information from passengers detected with scalped tickets. It obtained injunctions from courts, and worked to secure the passage of antiscalping laws. Outside agencies, such as the Central Antiscalping Committee, consisting of representatives from merchants', travelers', traders', jobbers', and manufacturers' associations, boards of trade and chambers of commerce, constituted another enemy of the ticket broker. Their aim was particularly to obtain the passage of federal and state antiscalping laws. The courts assisted with restraining orders issued |
