TRAIN TICKETS TELL TALES

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 686, 22 November 1921, Page 5

TRAIN TICKETS TELL TALES

THEY HAVE EVEN CONVICTED A MURDERER. All railway tickets when collected are sorted and carefully looked over. The result of this security is sometimes as amusing as unexpected, while others reveal pathetic details. Tickets Issued to racing centres are especially liable to bear messages. One a return half from Newmarket, bore, in small irregular letters, the words, “My Last Sovereign Will Stand Jft.” Gone. Goodness Knows How ‘She The word “Ruined” is often found scrawled across the backs of tickets, and sometimes such phrases as “Bet your bottom dollar on Pretty Polly.” Surely the mosjt curious use of a railway ticket happened in America. A collision occurred on the line, and a man was pir.ped beneath the wreckage, being slowly crushed to death. Wikh remarkable courage ne managed to write his will, 'consisting of eighjt wofrds on. the back of a ticket. Some time ago two first-class tickets were collected at Willesden Junction, being consecutive numbers, On one was written “Say yes, darling,” while the othe)r bore in a neat feminine hand the words, “You must ask' mama.” , , . A certain Irish railway company received an extraordinary request from a money-lender., According to him, while .he was travelling to Dublin, a friend borrowed £ls. No)t having any paper on him he had written an 1.0. U. on the back of his railway ticket and had accidentally given this up. He requested ithe companv to return his 1.0. C. No trace of it could be found, however.. Some years ago a murderous assault was committed in a railway carriage, and the assailant, a discharged convict, who was travelling without a ticket, snatched his victim’s and gave it up to the collector at the barrier. . The ticket bore bloodstains and the disappearing passenger was identified later alt. his trial owing entirely to the tell-talfe ticket h£ had given up.