A good story is told of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln Railway
Company. A week or two since, the company ran an excursion train to
London and back, the excursion being intended for their workmen at Gorton
and Manchester. There was an enormous demand for the tickets; so
enormous that the officials began, to use an expressive term, “to smell a
rat.” But the sale of the tickets was allowed to proceed. The journey
to London was made, and a considerable number of the passengers
congratulated themselves upon the remarkably cheap outing they were
having. But on the return journey they made a most unpleasant discovery.
Their tickets were demanded at Retford, and then the ticket-collectors
insisted upon the holder of every ticket proving that he was in the
employ of the company. The result can be imagined. There were more
persons in the train who had no connection with the company than there
were of the company’s employés; and the former had either to pay a full
fare to and from London, or to give their names and addresses preparatory
to being summoned. We hear, from a reliable source, that the fares thus
obtained amount to about £300.
—_Echo_, Sept. 23, 1880.