Section 462.5 - Free transportation; penalty; freight; tickets(a) No common carrier, subject to the provisions of this act shall hereafter, directly or indirectly, issue or give any free ticket, free pass, or free transportation for passengers, except to its employes or their families, its officers, agents, surgeons, physicians or attorneys at law and members of their families; or to former railroad employes and members of their families, when such employes have become disabled in the railway service, or retired upon pension, and to the members of the families of deceased employes; to ministers of religion, traveling secretaries of railroad young men's christian associations, persons engaged exclusively in charitable and eleemosynary work; to indigent, destitute and homeless persons and to such persons when transported by charitable societies or hospitals, and the necessary agents employed in such transportation; to inmates of the national homes or state homes or homes for disabled volunteer soldiers, and sailors' homes, including those about to enter and those returning home after discharge, boards of managers of such homes; to necessary caretakers of live stock, poultry, fruit and vegetables; to employes on sleeping cars and express cars; to linemen of telegraph and telephone companies and others engaged in the care and operation of telegraph and telephone lines; to railroad postal employes, post office inspectors, custom inspectors and immigration inspectors; to newsboys on trains, baggage agents, witnesses attending any legal investigation in which the common carrier is interested, persons injured or killed in accidents and members of the families of the same, and physicians and nurses attending such persons, and dependent relatives of injured or deceased employes, and such other persons as the commission may from time to time by special order designate: Provided, That this provision shall not be construed to prohibit the interchange of passes for the officers, agents, attorneys and employes of common carriers and their families; nor to prohibit any common carrier from carrying passengers free with the object of providing relief in cases of general epidemic, pestilence or otherwise calamitous visitation: Provided further, That nothing shall be construed to prohibit the exchange of mileage for advertising in publications of general circulation. Any common carrier wilfully violating this provision shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and for such offense, on conviction, shall pay to the state of Michigan a penalty of not less than 100 dollars nor more than 500 dollars, and any person, other than persons excepted in this provision, who uses any such free ticket, free pass or free transportation, shall be subjected to a like penalty;(b) Nothing herein shall prevent the carriage, storage or handling of freight free, or at reduced rates for the United States, the state or any political subdivision thereof, or any municipality thereof, or for charitable purposes, or to and from fairs and expositions for exhibition thereat, or household goods, or other personal property of railroad employes, or the interchange of franks for the free transportation of personal property of the officers, agents, attorneys and employes of common carriers and their families; nor to prohibit any common carrier from carrying property free with the object of providing relief in cases of general epidemic, pestilence or other calamitous visitations, or the issuance of mileage, commutation, excursion passengers' or party tickets: Provided, That such tickets shall be obtainable by all persons applying therefor under like circumstances and conditions without discrimination.1909, Act 300, Eff. 9/1/1909 ;--CL 1915, 8113 ;--CL 1929, 11021 ;--CL 1948, 462.5.