SMOKING AND BAD LANGUAGE IN RAILWAY CARRIAGES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 126, 15 July 1880, Page 2

SMOKING AND BAD LANGUAGE IN RAILWAY CARRIAGES.

To the Editor.

Sir, —Having occasion to visit Christchurch the other day, I went by the express. The small compartment was nearly full of passengers, the majority of whom were ladies and children. There was one individual who would persist in maintaining a conversation with his neighbor, and took good care that everybody else should hear what he had to say by pitching his voice about three notes higher than the din caused by the motion of the train. So far, so good. But, in order to heighten the effect of his utterances, I suppose, he embellished (as he thought, no doubt), his sentences with a profusion of bad and profane language, that was most offensive and disgusting to all who had to listen. Returning from town, being a non-smoker, I took my seat in an American second - class carriage. We had not got far from Addingson, when I counted more than eight men tmoking at the same time, and spitting all over the floor of the carriage. When the guard came in, he said that smoking was not allowed. The pipes were put away for the moment, but soon as his back was turned, they were at it again, and smoked to their hearts content. Why, Mr. Editor, should a respectable public have to submit to such annoyance and inconveniences, and have to inhale the filthy fumes arising from the abominable stuff men of this class smoke. Gould not a large placard be put up in a conspicuous place to the effect that all persons guilty of improper language, or smoking (in carriages not set apart for that purpose), would be expelled from the train, at the next station she might stop at. Hoping someone else will take up this matter, and try to put down a very great nuisance and a positive evil—l am, &c.,

Traveller