CHAPTER XI
“Jumpers”—“Spots”—Some curious passengers—Conductors and coachmen—The Rothschild Christmas-boxes—Mr. Morris Abrahams and Omnibus Men’s Superannuation Fund—Horses—Cost of omnibuses—Night in an omnibus yard
It is said, frequently, that omnibus companies and proprietors have received little or no benefit from the introduction of the ticket system because of the expense connected with the working of it, but that is a very great mistake. The London General Omnibus Company saves £100,000 a year by it, and the other companies and associations have just as much cause for satisfaction. But it must be confessed that at the outset the ticket system was more or less a farce, the conductors omitting openly to give tickets and being encouraged in their breach of duty by the lower class of riders. Some conductors flung away their rolls of tickets and declared that they had been stolen. Others placed them under the omnibus wheels to be crushed, and then pretended that the damage done was the result of an accident. Some of the more reckless spirits bragged that they had given the tickets to their children to play with.
The polite inspectors—called by the men “jumpers”—came into existence with the introduction of tickets, and for some time there was a considerable amount of excitement about their work, for, while conductors did not trouble to conceal from passengers the fact that they were not doing their duty, they seemed to consider it a personal insult that an inspector should board their omnibuses to see if passengers had been given tickets. Some conductors assaulted the unwelcome inspectors, but the police-court magistrates soon proved to them that it was a very unprofitable step to take, and, in course of time, the men who wished to retain their posts settled down to issuing tickets in a proper fashion, and to regarding with comparative calmness the sudden appearance of an inspector on their step.
“We have to punch tickets in the dark,” one conductor declared indignantly to a passenger, “and then a ‘jumper’ comes up with an electric light to see that we’ve punched them in the right section.”
“Perhaps they’ll fix electric lights on top of the ’buses before long,” the passenger said, consolingly.
“Hope they won’t, guv’nor,” the conductor answered hurriedly. “Shouldn’t get any more two-shilling pieces for pennies if they did.”
Ticket-inspectors are known to all Londoners, but few people are aware that the omnibus companies have also private inspectors, whose duty it is to ride about in their omnibuses, as ordinary passengers, for the purpose of noting and reporting anything that affects their interests adversely. These people, who are called “spots” and “wrong ’uns” by the ’busmen, are not beloved by conductors and coachmen, for the simple reason that they never know when they have one on their omnibus. The man in evening dress who enters the omnibus in the Strand after the theatres have closed may be one; so, too, may be the man with a bag of workman’s tools who rides up to town by the first omnibus. The daintily dressed young lady who enters at Peter Robinson’s or William Whiteley’s may, from her seat in the corner, be regarding the conductor with an interest which is not born of admiration, and the palpably retired officer who gets in at Piccadilly may be earning a welcome addition to his income by watching ’busmen’s manœuvres. But it must be very embarrassing to these “spots” as they sit, unobtrusively, in the omnibus to see facing them, as an advertisement of Sapolio, Lady Macbeth’s exhortation, “Out, out, damned spot!”
Private inspectors are by no means a modern addition to the staff of an omnibus company. Shillibeer, as stated in Chapter II., employed them a few weeks after he placed the first English omnibuses on the road, and succeeding omnibus proprietors followed his example. The duties of these early inspectors were not very arduous, for, as there were only shilling and sixpenny fares, known as “longs” and “shorts,” and but two outside seats, it was a simple matter to check the amount received by a conductor during a journey. The defalcations of conductors were, by the means of these inspectors, kept from being extensive, but when omnibuses had been in existence about fifteen years one of the largest proprietors received reports from his “spot” which he could not understand. The “spot” would state that a certain omnibus, on a certain journey, had carried, say, twelve “longs” and sixteen “shorts,” but the conductor would pay in the fares of fourteen “longs” and seventeen or eighteen “shorts.” To unravel this mystery the proprietor persuaded a relation, who was unknown to the ’busmen, to ride in a certain omnibus on the same journey as his “spot,” and check who was really right. This man’s reports agreed with the “spot’s.” Both declared that the conductor had collected less money than he paid in. The amateur “spot” then rode two journeys in that omnibus when the professional man was not there, and on those occasions it was found that the conductor paid in only about three-quarters of the money he received. Eventually the conductor was arrested for fraud, and confessed how he had been working his omnibus. He had bribed the proprietor’s clerk to tell him who the “spot” was, and where he could be seen. As soon as he had received that information, and taken a good look at the man, he felt that he was safe from being detected in his fraud. Whenever the “spot” rode in his omnibus, he paid in more than he received, relying upon getting back the extra money, and a good bit more, on the journeys when the “spot” was not present. Why he did not remain satisfied with simply paying in the exact amount he took on every occasion that the “spot” rode in his omnibus is a question that occurs to every one who hears the story. In all probability he considered himself a very smart fellow, and it is the fate of people possessed of an exaggerated idea of their own cleverness to make some silly blunder which proves that, after all, they are but fools.
In the forties and fifties several well-dressed women “spots” were employed by the omnibus proprietors, and when a conductor suspected any lady passenger of being one, he generally communicated his suspicion to the coachman, with the result that when she wished to alight, the coachman would pull up in the muddiest part of the road, so that she would be compelled to get her boots and skirt dirty. More often than not it was a perfectly innocent lady whom the conductor left stranded in the centre of a crowded, muddy street. These mistakes are still very common. Conductors are always on the look out for “spots,” and every day hundreds of innocent passengers are suspected of being private inspectors because they happen, perhaps unconsciously, to watch the conductor punching tickets or to glance at his badge number.