SMOKING IN TRAMCARS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18332, 23 February 1923, Page 3

SMOKING IN TRAMCARS.

—Your correspondent " Smoker " makes a mild protest against women in-' ; vading 4 smoking compartments on teamcars, but why need there be any smoking compartments at all? A tram ride is ; never a long affair, seldom more than 15 or 20 minutes, and surely it would be no great hardship for a man to have to • sit for that time without sucking at a horrid pipe. If no smoking compart- ! ments were provided they would not . want to smoke. So far as I remember ( thera are no smoking carriages on the London tubes, and they carry a thousand million passengers a year, which is more than the Auckland trams do. A Woman. Sir.—The women's reply to "Smoker" will probably be that no one should be allowed to smoke in public conveyances. And so say many men. Nine-tenths probably of passengers are from 15 to 20 minutes at most on the car. Abstinence for so short a time would bo no hardship even if such indulgence -were excusable, and the management would be fully justified in forbidding it. When the service began as a company enterprise provision was made for smokers without reference to the public. Now that the trams are public property there is no I reason why a vote should not be taken on this matter, and if a mandate for sup- ! pression of the nuisance is not secured 1 i would suggest that the management at i once proceed to limit accommodation, ! for smokers and make their isolation i more complete by fitting springs or other automatic means of closing the division doors, as few conductors or passengers take the trouble to shut doors. These .measures would improve the service, abating the nuisance during ■' the growth of civilisation to such standard as they will no longer be needed. : Hopeful.