RED TAPE AT CASS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16568, 4 June 1914, Page 10

RED TAPE AT CASS.

s*o THE KDITOK. Sir, —After reading the nerve-racking account of tho accident to Mr Patrick Crowe at Cass on May 1-1, I ask the courtesy of your influential columns to refer to tho extortionate charge of £SO which Mrs Crowe was forced to find before her suffering husband could be sent on by special train to the Christchurch Hospital. It seems incredible that our railway authorities will be allowed to retain Mrs Crowe's £SO. If they do so tho public will be entitled to know the reason why certain of their railway servants have been reduced to the status of mere automatoms, without a scrap of backbone or initiative about them. In your ample report of this distressing accident you state:—lt is now feared that Crowe will lose the sight of his loft eye. A year or more ago Crowe, who, as stated, is a married man and has seven children, lost the: sight of his right eye, and had a hand blown off through a stick of gelignite exploding. Personally, I cannot believe that the wife of this most unfortunate man will be allowed by a sympathetic public to be practically robbed of her hard-earned £SO.

If this £SO fare on account of this fossilised red-tape policy, be forthwith refunded to Mrs Crowe who has, apparently more than enough sorrow and care to fight against, I, for j one, am ready to forward £1 to any duly accredited person in Canterbury, who is in a position to collect and forward to Mrs Crowe a sum of money equal to that paid by her for the use of a special train.—l am, etc., ARTHUR HUNTER, j Mercer, May 30, 1914.