A Matter of Enlightenment.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1862, 17 September 1906, Page 2

A Matter of Enlightenment.

JTo the Editor Gisborne .Timea^

Sir, —Gisborne is only blessed with a ’ short length of railway line; but is more ■ fortunate as regards railway officials. I i have travelled on every line in New Zea- ' land, and nowhere have I oome into contact with more oarefal and obliging people than those who work on and control ouc little line. Having travelled from Gisborne to Te Karaka on Thursday even* ing’s train I had occasion to interview the guard at the Te Karaka end, thus overhearing a conversation between him and a passenger for Gisborne. It appears that our worthy stationiiiaeter at Gisborne sends out plenty of carriages in oase of a rush. On the ocoaßion of which I write there were five carriages (two double and three single), four of which were lit up and capable of oarrying from fifty to sixty passengers easily. J also took nolioe of the number of passengers on the outward* bound train, wbioh was six all told. Oqu passeDger, puffed up with his own importance, must, of oourse, deposit himself in the only carriage whioh was not lit up, and upon the guard politely asking him to go into one of the others, did not actually refute, but was loud in bis complaints and threats of writing to head offioe, and the papers generally, and all other kinds of threats that a man of that stamp uses when he is born tired, I ask you tb publieh this letter in defence of a public servant who is debarred, by the rules of the service, from protecting himself in this way, and who was civil and polite to tbs aforesaid passenger.—Yours, etc.,

A PASSENGER.

[Our own experience bears out that of our correspondent as regards civility of railway men.—En. G.T.j