FADS OF TRAVELLERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3280, 24 January 1917, Page 61

FADS OF TRAVELLERS.

SOME QUEER NOTIONS. , "A corner seat, please." " Yes, third class?" ''.Here v'ar, mum." '"No, this won't do, I'm afraid. I must face the engine."' And the weary porter has to try again. Someone else must have her back to the engine ; otherwise she fears train sickness may result. What people of fads and fancies we are! There may be some notion of sound reason behind these ideas, but how often are they not resolved by the reflection, "I never do" or the still weaker one, '"1 couldn't.'' Let us, however, by way of introduction to our theme, and to put ourselves on good terms with those of our readers who suiter from the back-to-or-facing-the-engine trouble, point out a sound reason for each school's view. If so bo that you face the direction of going and are in the corner seat, by the established custom of railroads, survival no doubt of the inside passengers' etiquette in coaching times, you have control of a window. You may shut it to the distress of the fresh-air fiend, or you may open it and enjoy the breezes that the fugsters loathe. With your back to the locomotive you are secure from draughts, and are immune from the eye weariness which results from the rush past of the scenery as the miles are eaten up by the express. "We are all of us creatures of fads in divers directions, and most of us weak enough to want some sort of excuse for them. How much better and stronger to remember that fancy is, after all, the root of most matters of taste, and leave it at that? Let us forbear, therefore, from finding explanations for the traveller who. forced to ride upon a middle seat, away from the lounging comfort of the window corner, vet decries the seat that falls the wrong way. Ma lade imaginaire may result from so riding. Possibly such a view has as much sound sense behind it as the one which prevails upon a man not to start or end a journey upon a Friday, although this species of faddist must have been hard hit by that week-end habit of fore-wartime which so upset our moralists. The lady who will not trust her jewel case to the rack, but insists upon keeping it upon the scat by her side, is on slightly firmer ground ; but what are we to say of the traveller who refuses to trust a single piece of his impedimenta to the van, but be his belongings much or little compels his fellowtravellers to the delights of a long journey beneath a groaning and over-laden rack heedless of the caution that such rack is "for light articles only"? No doubt he would justify himself by the story, if lie knew it, of the summing up of a one-time well-known judge in a case where a passenger was suing a railway company for damages for lost luggage. "Gentlemen of the jury," said his Lordship, "the plaintiff in this case says the defendants have lost has luggage. The railway company are always losing luggage: thev lost mine last week. Consider your verdict." "Ladies Only." Consider in your turn what quaint perversity it is that enables women of the less prepossessing type to crowd into carriages for long journeys marked '"Ladies only."' We saw recently a compartment so labelled filled to overflowing with jolly tars fresh home on leave. Was it a protest against the provision of such facilities of a complaint about the way in which the ladies of the real type, the type which we all have in mind when we say "God bless 'em," without consideration particularly of rank, fashion, or youth, make their way in these times into the "smoker.'' and there abstain from smoking? It may be a fad or some odd mischance that a smoking carriage is about the only place where you never see a woman smoke in these latter days. There are numbers of men, too. who make their journey in those compartmentswithout smoking or wanting to smoke. Force of habit perhaps. We dislike to be so ungallant as to say that it is a desire to escape those dear things of the "God bless 'em" brand already noted! Luggage Fads.— Of luggage feds there are many. Now-a-days it is good form to reduce your luggage to the lowest limits, but in happier days many people went to all sorts of trouble and inconvenience to avoid an extra handbag. Most of the so-called problems of packing arose from this peculiarity, which is in defiance of the first canon of good packing—to have enough packages into which to pack. An eye to expense, an excess of economy, meanness to wit, was oftentimes the reason for this evil habit ; the same failing wa - at the heart of fho-v who insisted in doing all their travelling at the lowest conceivable rate. It resulted in loss of comfort in many directions, and loss of dignity, occasionally in loss of honesty. Who of us dues not know children over 12 compelled by a mean parent to travel at half-rate?

Ami this by fathers and mothers in ail other relations in life the acme of probity, and free from petty meanness. Do we not all know, too, the fellow-passenger who burdens himself with small packages, straying all over the compartment, the cail.-e of anxiety and confusion to the luck je.-s owner and inconvenience to us others. One large package would contain the whole; but no! The annoyance is almost as great which is derived from the family possessing the idea that the shortest journey is the opportunity for a meal by the way, usually of sandwiches and messy foods. We prefer the happy party who makes a flask his inevitable accompaniment in the train even though, in common with some lighter mortals, it involves eventual music of sorts, or attempts at song. It is beyond iw to explain why mirth of a kind, merriment of a sort, or horseplay of divers varieties should be in the natural run of some journeys: but so it is. Insoluble problem! As difficult of penetration as to explain why boys, or young women of the louder type, desire the box sent and conversation with the driver —usually a dull enough fellow with a thirst for long drinks and short stiaws —both, paradoxically enough, applied to the lips. A Fasting Journey.— But there are intimate individual fads not to be placed among the general categories which we have mused upon. Look round among your friends and see what quaint idiosyncrasies the need or desire for travel calls forth. One declines to eat. Mo luxurious, restaurant car meal will tempt her ; no cup of tea at a halting station; not even a furtive nibble at a-semi-concealed package. She journeys fasting, and is always fit for nothing the next day, but her fad persists. Hardboiled eg'gs are a fad of an elderly spinster of our acquaintance, but in a purely negative way. The sight of them iu a railway train is entirely upsetting, and involves an immediate change of compartment : nor have we ever discovered the reason. And what are we to say to the conversation fiend who makes it a hobby to talk almost intimately with every fellowvoyager. even if the joint journey be one between stations in a stopping train? He will read these lines, perhaps, and turn ns down as insular, standoffish, and the rest. We remain unconvinced. Peace and quiet on a journey is our fad, and not so very unreasonable a one at that. Fads Aboard Ship.— On board ship we find the same sort of fads peeping out. One must bo near tiic centre of the ship : another near the stern. One cannot sleep below deck f* another prefers to bo as deep as may be below. Jones must smuggle a few bad cigars, although his means are more than sufficiently ample to buy many boxes of good ones at home. Eobinson hates the idea of the Customs diving into his perfectly innocent baggage, hands them his key with reluctance, and comes from the Douaue incensed and insular. Brown opens wide the mouth of his kit-bag, treats the whole thing as a joke, and hopes for the best that°tho bottle of scent in the right hand bottom corner will not come to light. Human nature, after all, is the reason for all these cranks, and human nature, as some earlier writer has already remarked, is largely different. It is human nature which makes us lift the blinds at the i ailway station, although we know where we are and don’t want to look out. And it causes the guard, too, to come round after the station has been left behind to say, “Draw the blinds, please !” On which note we may well draw ours.