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| Photo: no date, Museum of the American Railroad, Frisco, TX |
CHRISTMAS ON
THE PULLMAN CAR
The Time of Year When The Porter
Reaps His Harvest
All Pocket-Books Dwindle Before
the Blue-Capped Man.
He Makes Enough In Fees During
the Holiday Season to Maintain
His Reputation for Opulence.
Even the Millionaire and the Free
Rider Come Down.
A well dressed colored man who was known to be neither a Gloucester sport nor a politician created a little ripple of excitement in a Chestnut street saloon, late yesterday afternoon by flashing a big wad of bills when it came his turn to pay for the drinks. He was flush, and proud of it, and was ordering the best in the house with that distinctive liberality which is the invariable outcome of easily-gotten wealth. The proprietor of the saloon tipped a few confidential words to an inquisitive reporter and the mystery was solved. The flush man was a Pullman car porter.
Now, inasmuch as the general public has long since recognized the fallacy of the newspaper humorist's gag relative to the Pullman car porter rolling in opulence, and has discovered that those industrious knights of the whisk-brush are in reality among the hardest-worked and poorest-paid men in railroad circles, it became a matter of interest to the inquisitive reporter to find out just why one of that fraternity should be displaying wads of "long green" in high-priced saloons at this season. The facts as unearthed wore these:
THE PORTER'S HARVEST TIME
Christmas is the Pullman porter's harvest time. It is his millennium, which, unlike the millennium of ordinary people, comes once a year, and is of a more satisfactory nature than the ordinary run of millenniums on that account. It is the time of year when not only are people's hearts more open and more ready to pay a financial consideration for the little attentions of those about them, but when, also, the railroads are thronged by home-returning people whose minds and purposes are full of the great festival and its good cheer. The porter reaps the benefit of this universal feeling.
"Why, I expect to make my monthly salary thrice over within the next twenty-four hours," said one of them at Broad Street Station last night just before starting out upon a night run to Chicago, "although the bulk of my receipts are over, and during the past week I have salted away in the bank a roll big enough to keep want from my family when the slack season sets in.
THE MILLIONAIRE COMES DOWN
"Why, bless me, what would we porters do on our salaries of $16 per month if it were not for Christmas and the few occasions throughout the year when we happen to strike generous parties? Christmas is really the only time in the year when we make any money. Everybody gives to us then. There are plenty of regular riders, like drummers and theatrical people, who never think of giving me more than a quarter all tho rest of the year, who will out with a five dollar bill or even more at Christmas.
"But the best of all is to see the way the big business men and millionaires come down. I could give you the name of a big New York banker who goes to Chicago an average of twice a month, and who always religiously gives the porter a ten cent piece when he gets to his journey's end. I have him with me on my last trip East a couple of days ago, and he came down with a tenner as good as gold. Even the people who ride on passes go down into their pockets for us during this time of the year, something which they will never do at any other season. And the women give us a dime or a quarter when we brush off their coats without asking us how much it is."
All of which goes to verify the old legend that Christmas mellows human nature, and taketh away all restraint from men's pooketbooks.
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