RAILWAY ACCOMMODATION.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6242, 6 May 1882, Page 3

RAILWAY ACCOMMODATION.

A lady thus writes to the Timaru Herald : — Sir, — Having occasion to travel vtry often by railway, and with a young infant, it appears to me very unfair on the part of the authorities that there is no carriage set apart for the use of women with young children. All such will agree with me how very annoying it is to have to nurse and attend to them in a manner wbieh all young children require, if there are a number of men present. We do not like to nurse them in our own rooms before strange men, and yet we are compelled to do so in a public carriage or else have the babies screaming all the time, especially if we have any distance to travel, say from Christchurch to Timaru. There is a smoking carriage, and if we unintentionally intrude there we are ordered out peremptorily as if doing something shocking. If we cannot afford

to travel first-class, or prefer to travel second«class, men in a state of intoxication arc allowed to trnveJ with us. I would stltfgest to the authorities, ns ono of the victims, that men in that state should be made to travel in the smoking carriage, for they smoke, spit about the floor, &c, in a manner which is disgusting to us in tbe extreme. Surely we might be allowed one carriage where we could retire, if we desired, free from the observation of men, and attend to our infants. It is indelicate in the extreme that such has not been the case in the past. I trnst these remarks will open the eyes of the proper authorities to the truth of what I am writing about, and that it will be remedied before the Christchurch Exhibition, as no doubt many women will be travelling with young babies aud will feel more comfortable if free from the observations o£ the other sex."