SPIES ON THE RAILWAY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 78, 22 May 1911, Page 6

SPIES ON THE RAILWAY.

The “Oamarn Mail” has the following:—lt seems that two spies—a man and a woman—-have lately been travelling on the railway in the South, as well as in the North Island, their object, it is said, being to trap the guards. r J he man and woman are said to ho husband and wife, but they travel in different carriage}, leave the railway stations by different ways, and take separate rooms in the’ hotels whore they stay. The man sometimes, if not always, passes himself off as the advance agent for a theatrical company. Yvhat the pair do is to test the guards to see whether they can bo “got ,at” in the matter of issuing tickets. The modus operand! may he gleaned from what took place recently on the line between Dunedin and Palmerston South. The man boarded the train at Dunedin, taking a ticket for Merton, the presumption being that ho knew well there was no accommodation there. Merton is a flag station, and as this man was the only passenger lor it, the guard had to stop the train specially for him. Ho asked the guard if there was any accommodation there, and on being told there was none, affected great surprise, and said ho would have to go on to Palmerston. Ho accordingly got on the train again, and on the guard telling him that lie would require another ticket, the man is said to have endeavoured to persuade the guard not to bother about issuing another ticket, but to put the money in bis pocket. The guard, however, would have none of this. Tic issued the ticket, and made the man pay for it in the ordinary way. The man spent a day in Palmerston, and next day went up the Dunhack lino, where ho wont through a similar performance, Hut again"without trapping the guard. His general practice is to take a ticket for a (lag station and then try to override the distance.