OUTRAGES ON OVERLAND RAILROAD

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1495, 25 November 1874, Page 2

OUTRAGES ON OVERLAND RAILROAD

PASSENGERS ROBBED BY FORCE, AND TRAINS TAKEN POSSESSION OF BY ARMED BANDITS.

Passengers by every train arriving from the East both first-class and emigrant (says the " Alta California"), make statements of atrocious treatment and robbery at the hands of armed bands of desperadoes, who infest the line of the route in great numbers, and prosecute their depredations on passengers without restraint. But for the constant and , corroborative evidence received from those t who have passed the ordeal of the overland railroad journey, it would seem incredible that such outlawry could exist with immunity in the country, and a publication of the real facts must deter all but verycourageous people from venturing upon the overland journey These outrages have been commonly excused by the railroad authorities on the representation that passengers who are relieved of their money are simply the victims of their own folly, in wagering with three-card monte swindlers ; but the burden of complaint now represents bold and audacious robbery, under threats of life, with bowie-knives and pistols. The following statement, prepared by the passengers who reached the city by the emigrant train this morning, ia a fair description of every-day ccurrences on the line of the Central Pacific, but the details are hardly up to the reports of previous atrocities that have been received in the city :—We, the undersigned personp, have just arrived in California from Omaha, and we feel it to be our duty to warn the public that neither life nor property is safe on the emigrant trains of the Central Pacific Bailroad. This thoroughfare of travel is infested from end to end with thieves, gamblers, and sharpers, who are little better than highway robbers. The conductors and brakesmen of the trains are either afraid to exercise any authority, or are in league with these mauraders There is no law and no place of appeal for protection, as is the case on shipboard, but every peacaful or unarmed passenger is at the mercy of any ruffian who chooses to maltreat him. The conductors refuse to take any t notice of such outrageous actions when complained to. On our recent trip; many poor men of our party were fleeced out of their last dollar at three-card monte — several of them being family men. We do not complain of this so much as we do of the fact that our train was literally captured this side of Reno by a gang of eight or ten monte brigands, who, because they could get no one to bet with them, passed through the cars calling the passengers filty names, striking them, spitting tobacco-juice in their faces, flourishing bowie-knives and revolvers, and threatening to cut our throats; or blow our brains out. They were all heavily armed, while few of us had weapons of any kind, and

HTw&iUd not come to this State with, the expectation of having to fighfc, our way through. At Truckee we were informed that a passenger on an eastwardbound immigrant-train had been barbarously beaten for refusing to gamble with these seoflndrels. It was also stated that more danger exists on the eastward-bound trains than on the trains for the west. All of these gamblers and capp rs are personally known to the rail-road conductors, but are never disturbed, but, on the contrary, usually ride in tbe same car with the conductors, after they have concluded their devilment for the ; trip. No far as we.could discover, not the ' slightest semblance of law was observaole along the Central Pacific Railroad in Nevada, everything being controlled by ruffianism and ihreats of murder, and we believe that the travelling public, especially the poorer class, should be made acquainted; with these facts."