LOCKING RAILWAY CARRIAGES.

Evening Star, Issue 4145, 9 June 1876, Page 3

LOCKING RAILWAY CARRIAGES.

There exists in this and the adjacent. Goloniesa practice of locking the; doors of railway carriages, thus making prisoners of the passengers. This practice meets with the strong condemnation of Sir C. G. Duffy, who, in the course of a lecture recently delivered by him in Melbourne, said—-’

The practice of locking ap passengers, like captured 'lunatics or gaol-breakers, is disappearing fast in Europe. In London and Paris not only is thfe door unlocked, but passengers are expected, and even required, to open it for themselves. On the Underground. Bailway and its rivals, for example (lines which have made all the suburbs of London marvellously accessible frem the centre), when a long train arrives at a station there are only one or two porters to attend to it, and it stops only two or three minutes, but fifty carnages open simultaneously. The doors are fastened bn the outside with a strong latch, perfectly secure, but easily moved and within reach of the band,-and the passengers open for themselves. It is just the same in Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, and other cities larger than Melbourne; and there is not a greater proportion of railway accident there than here. Last year the London lines carried the enormous number of 44,000,000 passengers, who were permitted to take care of themselves. I venture to think the people out here might also be trusted nut to commit suicide. Let us hope in the fulness of time some daring reformer may arise in Australia who will have courage to open the door, and that thence-forward'’-men and women will only be put into locked carriages, whom it has been found necessary previously to put into handcuffs or strait-waistcoats.