A Blow at Tobacco.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 169, 16 January 1895, Page 3

A Blow at Tobacco.

In Saturday's issue we recorded a case where " a well dressed man " was fined for smoking on the platform of the Government Railway Station, at Wellington, contrary to the Bye-laws which provide that " No person shall Binoke on any part of a railway or train except in the carriages set apart for the purpose." It would appear that although this law has been for many years " more honored in the breach than in the observance " yet under the new regime of Government control it is to be enforced with the utmost rigor. It will be observed that the individual chosen to be made a miserable example of was " a well-dressed man " and therefore an implied enemy of our alleged democratic and socialistic Government. The officials " were wise in their day and generation " in leaving alone " the hardy hornyhanded eons of toil " who are clad in moleskins and not attempting to " put their pipe 3 out " but selecting instead a bloated aristocrat who was " well dressed." Of course the poor victim was annoyed and spoke roughly to the railway official and wanted to see the Bye-laws. Whether he saw them or not did not matter, so he was " haled before the justices " and the solicitor who appeared for tbe accused pleaded — not without reason—" that the Bylaw was nullified by the continued tacit consent of the authorities to the practice of smoking on the platform '' yet his client was duly fiued. Of course the Magistrate could do nothing else. We may say that if this bye law is put into active operation all over the colony an enormous profit will accrue to the Government, because there is not a day — even Sunday — but when it is broken in scores of instances at every railway station, without exception. Convictions would, doubtless, be secured in a large majority of cases. This crusade against tobacco, if it be continued, may possibly tend in a proportionate degree to reduce the revenue derived from "the leaf," but that is merely a detail hardly worth the attention of " the powers that be." It is a pleasure to note, however, how the manners and customs of society are changing, and the day seems not far distant when tbe Now Zealander will be able to say with pride " I cannot smoke, and to drink I am ashamed." .