A TELL-TALE BLOOM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3890, 3 January 1929, Page 2

A TELL-TALE BLOOM.

POT PLANT IN A TRAIN. EXCESS CHARGE TO PASSENGER. A woman recently travelling to lier home -a short distance from Wellington by train, says the Evening Post, had in her lap a small pot plant, wrapped in paper, but with the tell-tale bloom peeping from the top. On this she had to pay sixpence excess because it was not bona-fide personal luggage. This .passenger Could have earned 1121 b. of bona-fide personal luggage free, could carry it every day if she wished; but she wished to carry a pot plant and -could not see why she ‘should be charged for it when she had it in her lap. Of course the passenger had no case, because the department reserves the right to determine whether a (package is personal luggage or not, but these are times when the department should be •careful -with its restrictions and reservations, from which private moi tor services are remarkably free, or the inevitable comparison will be made to the detriment of the railway service. The paper adds: “Passengers are discontented people at the best and too much cannot be left to the niscretion -of the -guard, without refuge in regulations, but the whole of the Railway Department’s regulations were framed to cope with conditions of many years ago. Some do( not apply to-day at all; others merely annoy the travelling public.”