The Pouch-Ticket Coupon Punch: Change in the Ticket, the Coupon in a Locked Box

"One of the great difficulties which street-railroad companies have hitherto had to contend with is the dishonesty of conductors in failing to account faithfully for the fares collected by them on their routes. My invention is intended to obviate this difficulty, as well as greatly to facilitate the making of change by the conductors." "It is manifest that it will be impossible for the conductor to appropriate any money to his own use without detection, except by receiving fare and giving no ticket therefor, and this could not be practiced to any considerable extent without detection."

**Tokens.** Cut card tokens and mark them 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 as "cents". **Pouches.** Fold small pouches from card stock, one per ticket. Draw a coupon on one corner of each and write the amount paid on it: 10, 25 or 50. Put the change inside with a fare of 6: 4, 19 or 44 in tokens. Make some blank tickets with a 6 coupon and no change. **Box.** Make a plywood box with a slot in the top and a lid held by one wood screw. **Run.** A "conductor" sells tickets to passengers paying in tokens, cuts each coupon off with scissors over the slot so it drops into the box, and keeps the cash. **Account.** Unscrew the box, add up the coupons, and count the conductor's cash. They must match, as the notebook shows. Then let the conductor "forget" one ticket and see the gap appear.

**Henry M. Stow** of San Francisco received US 85,409, dated 29 December 1868. He intended the system for city railways but also for other conveyances and toll roads; tickets issued by the company rather than the conductor were to differ in colour or otherwise, and his instrument's box carried a detective-lock. **Honest limits.** Card pouches, card tokens, scissors and a screwed box stand in for his printed pouches, coins, punch and locked box. The notebook uses Stow's own 6-cent fare and change figures; the day's mix of tickets is an example. Your balanced account is the result.