“I understand two of your neighbor’s cows got hit by railway trains last week.”
“Yep. An’ he got cash fur ’em, too. I don’t see how that feller trains his cattle not to shy at a locomotive.”—Washington Star.
When the public magnifies the cash returns from ticket sales and freight traffic it has not an accurate conception of the immense sums paid out annually by the railway companies for the adjustment of even small claims. Traffic Manager Adam Scott of the F. W. Woolworth Company, with eighty-five stores in Canada, was instrumental in having authorized during the past fiscal year $16,000 in vouchers issued to write off small claims on less than carload shipments of glassware and crockery. This firm controls nine hundred and ninety-eight stores in America and the sums involved in this phase of profit and loss must be immense.
On one occasion the Great Northern Railway wrote the Heinz Pickle Company, Leamington, Ont., regarding the collection of an undercharge amounting to $40.09, which arose from an error in prepaying the freight charges on a carload shipped to Vancouver, B.C. The Pickle Company’s Traffic Manager, at Pittsburg, Pa., working in accordance with the Inter-state Commerce Act Rules, promptly acknowledged the liability in an elaborate statement, with cheque, assuring the railway company that the correct amount of the discrepancy was, on further investigation, found to be $80.45. In other days we all knew some people who would have gasped at such an evidence of gratuitous fair dealing, but to quote from William Shakespeare, the listener would be fit for “treason, stratagem and spoils” whose risibilities are not tickled with a recital of the claim of a cautious old sexton, made on the Canadian Northern Railway at Winnipeg for two funeral tollings at $2 each which he would have received had the railway delivered the expected church bell in time. And so the old world and the amusing people on it, with their pleasantries and foibles, roll across the stage of every-day existence.
LINES ADDRESSED TO FREDERICK P. NELSON
Traveling Agent, Grand Trunk Railway, on the occasion of his marriage, Hamilton, Canada, May 27th, 1912
“We must encourage the young,” said a former acquaintance of your father—a benevolent old benedict—who cheerfully swung into line with the friends wishing to mark your approaching marriage and who would honor you with more than the sentiments expressed herein.
The matrimonial contract of that railroading knight is nearing completion; yours is about to be undertaken with ideals, hope and resolve. Undoubtedly the trail will develop many joys and some kinks in the path, but we are convinced that you can measure up to the best traditions of the lords of creation. Those who have basked in the rays of your genial personality prophecy you will prove docile “In bond” and all of us will “Watch your smoke.”
You spring from sturdy stock, long identified with railway construction in Canada, and since those other days in the loft of Hamilton’s smoke smeared freight shed, down the avenue of occupations in your native city, abroad in Western Ontario and throughout the business zone of Toronto, few dare question your reputation for urbanity, commercial sense and thoroughness. Where master and man wrest for silver fortunes in Cobalt Camp, they say your methods and diplomatic behavior were “as smooth as a kitten’s wrist” and a decided asset to the Grand Trunk Railway.