PILFERING FROM TRAINS RAMPANT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17831, 27 April 1926, Page 4

PILFERING FROM TRAINS RAMPANT.

THINGS THAT DISAPPEAR: INSPECTOR’S TALE OF WOE. One thing leads to another. As the result of drawing the attention of an inspector to the fact that a window strap had been slashed off, he opened his heart on the subject of other “railway takings,” and astonished a writer in an English paper. “Exactly what it costs the company every year to replace what passengers take, I can’t say,” he said, “but it must run into thousands of pounds. About the only things that haven’t been stolen, so far. are engines, trains and trucks. “If I put a new carafe and tumbler in the waiting-room here, I’d have the sho.ck of my life if they were there two days later. The same with mats. Only last week someone cut out a copy of the company's regulations and walked off with the frame. And we’d like to know who took one of the fire buckets, how he got away with it, and if he finds it useful. A porter left a broom about the other day. That went!

“I can’t speak for other sections, but I know that on this one cushions were missing from first-class carriages a little while ago. Squeezed into big pormanteaux, I suppose! Window straps, since they were made a little less useful as razor strops, have had a better time, but I suppose those that disappear are used for boot and shoe repair. And towels and soap! . . . The towels are about as small as they can be, and the company’s initials are stamped on them, but they go in hundreds! ” “The other day, travelling on business, I went to wash my hands. Only

one towel had been used, but the soap had gone. As I don’t suppose it was worth a half-penny, that’s a good example of the queer twist in the characters of some people that makes them —honest in everything else —take a delight in robbing a railway company. It was on the same journey that a woman, under my very .eyes, found a cup and saucer that had been pushed under the seat, and packed them away in her bag. I suppose I ought to have said something—but I didn't.”

“I haven’t heard of any case just lately, but some time ago quite a lot of windows had the. glass cut right out. Perhaps tl yc thief has got all he wanted. Never a week goes by without cushions being opened, and the stuffing taken out. Someone’s gain is the company’s loss! You mustn’t think, of course, that those who go in for ‘taking of the sort I’ve described always get away with it. A good many are caught.”

The sad-eved inspector continued;— “Last May—this is on the amusing side —I went for my holiday to a fishing A-illage. I got rooms in a cottage, and in the evening, feeling chilly, I asked if I could have a fire. The woman called to her husband to go and get some firewood, and off he went. Casually, I watched as she laid the chopped wood in position—and then stared. . . . They admitted afterwards that whenever they wanted a bit of firewood they took a few strips of the company’s fence round the goods yard! “And —to end—if you have to kick a waiting-room fire into life because there is no poker, it’s due to the fact that of a thousand pokers once in stock there are not a dozen left. Let it go that they were taken as mementoes.”