HUNGRY TRAVELLERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14235, 4 December 1909, Page 7

HUNGRY TRAVELLERS.

FOOD ON THE RAILWAYS

[BY TELEGRAPH.—SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]

Wellington', Friday. The Government's retrenchment policy, as evidenced in the railway dining cars, is commented on in adverse terms by a correspondent of the Dominion. He says : —"In the days of the Manawatu Company one could always obtain two eggs at breakfast time, but now, alas, that supply has been reduced 50 per cent, as a contribution towards Sir Joseph Ward's famous phantom three per cent, policy. This morning (November 22) I asked for fruit, and the attendant informed me that fruit at breakfast time had gone by the board. I was likewise informed that if I drank only a cup of tea at breakfast time I would be charged 2s, while if I had marmalade or jam with my morning tea the charge would be 9d instead of 6d, a rise of 50 per cent.

"In order to get anything like a 'square meal' now on the passenger trains carrying dining-cars, the hungry traveller," says the correspondent, "has to attack each item of the bill of fare; otherwise, supplies being served upon such a microscopical basis, the passenger in ordinary circumstances would still feel a strange vacuum after paying his 2s. On one of the sections, when I ordered some alleged lamb, after disposing of a liliputian entree, the attendant gazed at mo as if I were endeavouring to ruin, §ir Joseph's three per cent, policy by gastronomical extravagance, and when the order was executed the slice of lamb was almost transparent. I will say, however, that what there is of it the food is good, but the 'filling up' with bread and butter reminds one painfully of the low diet proposals practised in the hospitals."