Evening Post. MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 1885. THE PERAMBULATOR QUESTION.

Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 3, 5 January 1885, Page 2

Evening Post. MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 1885. THE PERAMBULATOR QUESTION.

Tm? perambulator question has rccontly oxcited a good deal of attention, and our columns hp.vo contained a number of indignant protests against tho stern provisions of tbo Police Offences Act forbidding tho use of these miniature vehioles on the footpaths. As a matter of fact, the prohibition is not a now one. Several old Provincial Ordinances contained a precisely similar one, and tho Statute Revision Commissioners only invited the Legislature to make the law uniform throughout the colony. We never heard of the old Ordinances causing any great inconvenience or hardship to mothers or nurses, and we do not suppose that the present law will really do so. All will depend upon the manner in whioh it is enforood. Most laws of Ithe same class, if too rigidly enforced, would bo found productive of more or less public iii convenience. A great deal must noc6ssarily_be left to the discretion of those oharged with the duty of administration. We do not for a moment suppose that the police will be bo indiscreet as to drive all perambulators into the roadway of our crowded streets, or to lay informations against all tho nuraegirls who insist on keeping to tho footpaths. If they do, certainly their lot will bo far from a happy one. The law is really aimed against tho abuse, not the use, of perambulators on tho footways ; and mo3t people will probably, on reflection, admit that this traffic, like all others, requires regulation. Who is there that has not noticed the nonchalance with which nursegirla frequently push their little vehiolos along, altogether regardless of the logs they grazo or the people they come into collision with ? A string of perambulators at a shop door, or outside a shop window, ia quite a oommon occurrence, while one of the vehicles standing right aorosa tho footpath, without anyone in apparent charge, is not altogether an unusual obstruction. Perambulators have indeed frequently been known to take absolute possession of tho footway, to the great inconvenionee and annoyance of ordinary pedestrians and persona walking on business. It is not by any means a bad thing that thero should be some means of regulating their use, so that it shall not prove an obstruction to traffic, or an annoyance to the general publio. This is really all that the now Act ia intended to do, aud we have no doubt that the police will so interpret it. The prohibition of perambulators on tho footpaths b no more intended to be absoluto and invariable than tho policeman's power to compel loiterers to " move on" is intended to prevont a couple of persona stopping on the footpath to talk for a fow minutes. Both are intended to guard against the possible abuse of a privilego, and to prevent a practice, harmless when kept within bounds becoming a public nuisance by being abused. Publio opinion would no more stand every porambulator being driven off tho footway than it would permit of every person who attempted to stop to speak to another beinp peromtorily ordered to "move on." We do not think that parents or nurscgirls will find the new law, in its practical operatien, any real hardship or inconvenience, while if it obliges those propolling the 39 useful little vehioles to show somo consideration for ordinary pedestrians and for tho rule of the road, tho publio will have cause to bo grateful.