New Way of Checking Railway Baggage

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The following method of checking baggage has recently been adopted with great satisfaction on two or three of the English railways: When a train, say a down train, arrives at any particular station, a porter attends with a book. 11 contains tickets of stiff card board bound in the book. Each ticket is about three inches long and one inch wide. It is partly cut. So that two separate parts of it can be easily torn off. The tickets are numbered differently, but each of the three parts of a ticket has the same number. The outer part of the ticket has a loop ot tape gummed to it. Suppose a person arrives at a station and is not going on by a train for an hour or twoi or a day, and is desirous of leaving a carpetbag or a trunk at the station. He pays one penny, and in a moment the taped portion of a platform ticket is fastened to the handle ot the carpet-bag. This portion bears, as has been already stated, a printed number also ; the words "deposited at Winchester," or whatever the station may be, and likewise the words, " lor down tiain." Another portion of the ticket, with the same number as the last, is torn off and given to the owner of the carpet-bag, to be presented at the station when the article is wanted. The words "for down train is omitted on this portion. The portion of the ticket that is left in the book corresponds with that given to the passenger, and is a check on the money-taker. The company then becomes responsible for the safety of the property. Luggage is divided into three classes—that for down train, up train, and to be left till called for, and should be sorted into three different compartments at the station.— For each division there is a separate book of tickets. If a person were to find or steal a ticket, and apply for property, he would be instantly detected, because he would first have to say whether the luggage was for up or down train, or to be left till called for which he could not do unless he owned it.— There is no necessity for any address to be on the luggage. One penny per package per diem is charged for a platform ticket. A um is now ueiuieSTniusurarnamenl for regulating the hours ot factory labor, by preventing the running of machinery after certain hours. The hours of factory labor in England are much shorter than those in our country. Children under ten years are not allowed to labor, and those under 13 years are provided with educational means by their employers. The operatives in these factories are not so well paid as those in America, but ' their hours of labor are less by 12 per week.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 8 Issue 49This article was published with the title “New Way of Checking Railway Baggage” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 8 No. 49 (), p. 392
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican08201853-392e

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