"TRUTHS" PILLORY.

NZ Truth, Issue 138, 8 February 1908, Page 4

"TRUTHS" PILLORY.

CHEEKY CONDUCTORS. Rude remarks of this paper on tramway conductors are not appreciated—by the tram conductors— and it is with fear and trembling that "we tak<« our pen m our hands to write these few lines, hoping that youare well as it leaves us at present." Our masked battery this week is once again turned on the insolent imps whom the City Council has found employment for on our trams, and "Truth" in_icates Conductor No. 209 as a sample of the young hog that tram-travellers have to contend with. Last Tuesday evening on tho 9.46 p.m. tram to Seatoup No. 209 conducted, and out to Kilbirnle there was an angry altercation between a passenger and the young pig. First someone was called a coot, then the passenger vociferated that the tramconductor was only a servant of the public, whereupon 20.9 observed that he knew what he wasj and that the passenger aforesaid was a "thing," • and no man, and the atmosphere was very troubled and a fight seemed imminent, but the passenger was a meek sort of person, and he "sfcidooed," leaving 209 like Casabianca on the burning deck. Of course, the motorman was m no hurry to move on. The tram, half full of passengers-, halted during this most unpaf liamentary wrangle, and it was [ " only when the passenger was out of rafige of 209's vituperative volleys that it was thought advisable to go on t© Seatoun. - Now, no sermon Is going to be preached. Conductors are human ; some of them are very tactful and obliging, and wisely refrain from provoking an unseemly squabble. But this 209 chap ought to be certainly, told m a mild manner that to call a passenger a thing, and to dispute his sex, particularly as he wears trott- : sers, is not m keeping with the Rood manners expected of a -conductor. Anyhow, there are a lot of pigs oil the trams around Wellington, and the public gets exasperated at tim_£ and loses its temper, and thfen conductors are given a bad time and find themselves covered m glory m the columns of "Truth."