University of Virginia Library

TRUNK SMASHERS.

Dave Marks, the famous Troy baggage-master and
trunk smasher—the man who slides trunks from morning
till night down a plank, and bangs and slams them from
the New York Central trains into the Hudson River
boats—recently experienced religion over at the Round
Lake Camp Meeting. Last night he went to a prayer-meeting
in Troy, and before a large congregation of
worshipers he confessed that he had smashed thirteen
million dollars' worth of trunks in twelve years, and
had been too sick a good deal of the time to attend to
business personally, too.

“But, my dear brothers and sisters,” he said, “since
I experienced the `wrath to come,' I tell Brother Perkins
that any old paper bandbox of a trunk is as safe
in my hands as a Herring's safe.

Commodore Vanderbilt told Superintendent Tousey
this morning that he was going to compel every baggage-man
on the Central Railroad to either experience
religion or go to breaking stones for ballasting the road
He says he's not going to hire men and pay them to
spend all their time and strength working for the New
York trunk makers.