A MYSTERY SOLVED.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1091, 27 April 1883, Page 4

A MYSTERY SOLVED.

A few d ys ago the passengers in a dlapton tram-ear were excessively annoyed to find that 'here was apparently an epidemic of bad sixpences in Clanton. In fact, it was so odd that six of the occupants of the trim-oar should tender bad sixpences to the conductor that one of the delinquents wrote to the Standard about it as an extremely local phenomenon. Next day, however, a good deal of the mystery was solved by one “G.M.” who narrated the experiences of his son on a similar occasion. It appears that instead of the sixpences emanating from the fare, they emanate from the conductor, and that the conductor calculates to some extent on the general repugnance of a respectable person to own a bud sixpence before twenty other people. The process is then much simplified. The valid sixpence of the passenger is submitted to the test of the conductor’s teeth, ami in the process becomes completely mixtd with the spurious sixpences under his tongue. The conductor himself gets confused, and taxes the passenger with having given him a bad sixpence, and if the passenger is in the least doubt :as to the sixpence he generally produces another 1 . In “ GM.’s ” case his son was so positive as to the date of 1 the coin that the services of a police- • man was required to take names and addresses; but so few people observe the coin they hand to the conductor i that the odds are immensely in tavnur of the individual—at least at present. As there are so many mysteries about it is gratifying to have one at least : solved. —Pall Mall Gazette.