system of detection being to employ a man,
personally unknown to guards and collectors, to
take his ticket like an ordinary passenger, but
travels part of the way in a different class, so
as to be mulcted in excess. A note of the
amount paid is taken, and should the collector
not account for it accurately, he suffers
immediate expulsion.

In spite of all precautions used by railway
companies to insure themselves against frauds
of dishonest passengers, cases are now and then
disclosed which go to prove how impossible it
is to guard every loophole against ingenious
trickery. For example: It is customary with
all railway companies to issue half-yearly or
annual tickets to persons travelling frequently
between any two stations. Mr. B., a man holding
a respectable position in society, and living
about ten miles out of London, was for two
years the purchaser of an annual ticket from a
certain company; and, as he travelled to and fro
every day, his face soon was so well known to
guards and collectors that he was seldom called
upon to show his ticket. At the end of the
second year, instead of purchasing a third annual
ticket, he had a ticket manufactured similar
in appearance to those issued by the manager of
the company, and with that gentleman's signature
neatly forged on the back. With this
forged ticket Mr. B. succeeded in travelling
daily for nine months between his house and
London. It was only through his losing it in a
cab— through which accident it got into the
superintendent's hands—that the fraud was
discovered.

The proceeds of the sales by auction of left
property to which owners cannot be found, serve
in some measure to reimburse the railway
companies for their numerous losses by thieves.
Notwithstanding all vigilance, and abundant
means at command in the way of detectives and
policemen, robberies on railways are very common:
not merely robberies from the person, or
of travellers' luggage, but systematic and
skilfully planned robberies from merchandise trucks
while in transit. In many cases, of course the
thief or thieves—for there are sometimes gangs
of men connected with such depredations—are
detected; but it frequently happens that in
spite of all inquiries and precautions, goods are
purloined no one can tell how or where. Cloth,
silk raw and manufactured, fancy goods of all
kinds, hampers of game, fruit, boots and shoes,
wines, and even cheese, vanish mysteriously.
For the more valuable classes of goods, lock-up
trucks with iron roofs are now coming into
general use, and they are protection against fire
as well as robbery. In one case the thief
was killed in the very act of robbery. The
waggon robbed, formed one of a train from
London to the north, which had to be
shunted into a certain siding about two o'clock
every morning, until the mail train passed.
This siding was on the top of a very high
embankment, and lay open on both sides, to the
fields. The train had been robbed once or twice
a week for two months or more, and all the
vigilance of the officials was at fault in the
endeavour to detect the culprit. But he was found
at daybreak one winter morning, a mangled
mass lying across the rails of the siding, with
the contents of a caddy of tea, which he had
taken out of the truck, scattered about him.
He had clambered up the embankment while the
train was waiting, had unfastened the sheet of the
truck, had crept inside, and picked out a caddy
of tea. But, while in the act of getting down,
the engine had given a sudden jerk at the train,
causing him to lose his footing. So, he fell
between the waggons, of which several passed over
his body.

A series of mysterious cheese robberies took
place some years ago, and were never detected.
Three or four times a week, for several mouths,
one or two cheeses would be taken out of a
train of twenty or more trucks, all laden with
cheese. As a last resource a man was put into
one of the trucks, sheeted over, and sent on a
dreary journey of a hundred and fifty miles,
armed with a dark lantern, and a policeman's
truncheon. But though the thefts continued,
no thief ever came near the truck in which the
man lay hidden. These robberies ceased as
mysteriously as they had begun, when cheese
enough to stock a small warehouse had been
stolen.

One of the most daring railway robberies
on record, was a robbery of passengers'
luggage that took place several years ago, on
one of the metropolitan lines. The London
season having come to an end, a noble family
left town for the east coast. The boxes and
packages were large and numerous. There was
a brass-bound box, containing a selection of
plate. Instructions were given for this box
to be put under a seat in a carriage; but, as
it was too large to be so placed, it was
packed on the roof with the rest of the
luggage; the whole being protected by a tarpaulin
cover, carefully fastened down. The train was
the afternoon express, which stopped only at
three or four large stations during the whole of
the journey, and arrived at its destination two
hours after dark. On the arrival of the train,
it was found that the brass-bound box had been
robbed, in transit, of a considerable part of its
contents. Upon investigation of the case, it
appeared that a person not altogether unknown
to the police, had been seen lounging about
the London platform before the starting of
the train. Immediately after it was gone, he
telegraphed in cypher to a certain station in
the country. When the train arrived at this
station, it was joined by the person who received
the message, and who was shown by the guard
into an empty compartment. As soon as it was
dark, this man must have opened the door of his
compartment, and while the train was going at a
speed of forty miles an hour, must have traversed
whatever number of carriages there may have been
between him and the box; must have mounted
to the roof of the carriage; must have unfastened
the tarpaulin; picked out the box from among
twenty other heavy packages; forced it open,