STEALING RIDES

Hokitika Guardian, 6 December 1932, Page 6

STEALING RIDES

VICTORIAN-RAILWAY PROBLEM

OFFENCES INCREASE IN NUBMER

MELBOURNE, December 2,

“Jumping, the rattler”—unauthorised train travelling —is seriously increasing, iMr D. Healed, prosecuting officer for the Railways • Department, told the City Court to-day. Two young men were charged with having' “taken a seat in a railway carriage without having had a ticket permitting them to do so.!' The me,u—-Bernard McMahon and Denis Shat'key, labourers, of no fixed address—were convicted. Special checker Roy OTlaLtomn said that h(> detected the two .men riding above the. couplings be ween the engine and the “concertina” of the ffi' ? t carriage of the Bn’lan to Melbourne train on November 21.

Sharkey and 'McMahon told the Co'vd that" thsv had been all over the M-llee looking for work, and had wanted to get to Gippsland. Mr Healey : The practice ot “jumping the rntUer” is becoming prevalent. Once they rode th e goods trains; now are * "taking on the passenger and express trains. If it becomes any worse T can lmrclly s-e how we (,c,, i deal with the matter. We hava special nien on to check these offeiider*. “It is not a matter of merely Winning the rattle’’ added M r Hfalev, “bat other things hopn-n _ n ~ the trains which a-“ nearly behind prosecutions of tin* kind.’ Mr Freeman, P.M.: It would have been awkward if some acride"t had lmnnerel to these men, and they had claimed damages. Even a trespasser had certain wilts. The que’tion- is what to do, with these men if they wer# trnlv for work. After havinii .ponvicted the men, Mr Freeman Mlfohrrfed the ca?e s on the men's undertaking to pav the railways the an’ovnt of the second-class rail from Italian, to Melbourne from their first earnings.