THE EPIDEMIC AND THE TRAMS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 56, 30 November 1918, Page 9

THE EPIDEMIC AND THE TRAMS

Sir,—lt is not very difficult to see.how this terrible scourge has been distributed ✓.ml spread over Wellington. The crowded condition of our Iramears is a defiance of decorum and hygiene. People crowd into them and stand breathing in enc'a other's faces. No efforts aro made by the authorities to check this paramount source of infection and disease, bjit rather every encouragement is given to it. A. case in'point: Ycsturday an elderly man boarded an already overcrowded car and stood on the back platform, the only plnce having standing room. The conductor took his tare and made no protest whatever against his standing on thai platform. Later an inspector jumped on the , car, and peremptorily ordered the man inside. The inside was already full of strap-hangers. The car was full. The inspector shouted: "Go inside or get out!" The man objected to "go inside," stating as his vea:-on that it was full and in this epidemic timo he preferred being outside. The inspoctov insisted on his going inside. Hot retorts followed, whereupon the inspector stopped the car and ordered the passenger oil'. Seeing the «ir was already overcrowded inside, and the objection Io squeeze into thp thickly-packed throng, thereby riskins; infection, a perfectly feasible one, was the. inspector justified in slopping the car and ordering the man off? If so, upon what principle of authority or discretion wero the remaining "passengers crowding the central platform and both cabins allowed to remain?—l am, etc., A PASSENGI'Ut.