An Englishwoman who travelled some years ago in America writes:—“I had
found it necessary to study physiognomy since leaving England, and was
horrified by the appearance of my next neighbour. His forehead was low,
his deep-set and restless eyes significant of cunning, and I at once set
him down as a swindler or a pickpocket. My conviction of the truth of my
inference was so strong that I removed my purse—in which, however, acting
by advice, I never carried more than five dollars—from my pocket, leaving
in it only my handkerchief and the checks for my baggage, knowing that I
could not possibly keep awake the whole morning. In spite of my
endeavours to the contrary, I soon sunk into an oblivious state, from
which I awoke to the consciousness that my companion was withdrawing his
hand from my pocket. My first impulse was to make an exclamation; my
second, which I carried into execution, to ascertain my loss, which I
found to be the very alarming one of my baggage checks; my whole property
being thereby placed at this vagabond’s disposal, for I knew perfectly
well that if I claimed my trunks without my checks the acute
baggage-master would have set me down as a bold swindler. The keen-eyed
conductor was not in the car, and, had he been there, the necessity for
habitual suspicion incidental to his position would so far have removed
his original sentiments of generosity as to make him turn a deaf ear to
my request; and there was not one of my fellow-travellers whose
physiognomy would have warranted me in appealing to him. So,
recollecting that my checks were marked Chicago, and seeing that the
thief’s ticket bore the same name, I resolved to wait the chapter of
accidents, or the reappearance of my friends. With a whoop like an
Indian war-whoop the cars ran into a shed—they stopped—the pickpocket got
up—I got up too—the baggage-master came to the door. ‘This gentleman has
the checks for my baggage,’ said I, pointing to the thief. Bewildered,
he took them from his waistcoat pocket, gave them to the baggage-master,
and went hastily away. I had no inclination to cry ‘stop thief!’ and had
barely time to congratulate myself on the fortunate impulse which had led
me to say what I did, when my friends appeared from the next carriage.
They were too highly amused with my recital to sympathize at all with my
feelings of annoyance, and one of them, a gentleman filling a high
situation in the east, laughed heartily, saying, in a thoroughly American
tone, ‘The English ladies must be cute customers if they can outwit
Yankee pickpockets.’”