A MUCH-NEEDED REFORM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7154, 19 July 1901, Page 2

A MUCH-NEEDED REFORM.

THE SPITTING NUISANCE.

The New York correspondent of tb» " Daily Telegraph," writing on April 3, says: — .

An energetic crusade was started to-day by the Board of Health against the practice of expectoration.. A month; ago the brief and disregarded placards in tramcars were changed to read thus: — " Spitting on the floor of this car is a misdemeanour. Five hundred dollars fine, or imprisonment for. one year, or both, may be^the. punishment. — By order of the Board of Health."

One hundred and eighty men, practically the entire strength of the sanitary, staff, were engaged in- riding all day for the purpose of detecting people guilty of the offence in question, and so far forty arrests have been made-. Business men on the way to their offices have been arrested, together with labourers hurrying to their work. In most cases the men were held for trial at the special, sessions -in-1-OOdol bail: .'■ \

JTor years this regulation has been practically a dead letter, owing t6 tine indifference of the car conductors 9 and the disinclination of citizens to appear in court to complain against violators of the law ; but Mr Sexton, the new president of the Board of Health, has declared his determination to discourage the dangerous practice, and the majority of the magistrates before ; whom the prisoners were arraigned agree with his views. The greatest astonishment is expressed by well-dressed men on being arrested. They have been for so long in the habit of ignoring the Board of Health notice that they were taken completely by surprise when confronted by material proof of the bureau's earnestness. ;

The trams and elevated railroad trains of all the boroughs making up this city yielded their quota. The offenders are generally insolent in the cars on being cautioned, but they quickly change their tone in court, and much satisfaction is expressed by decent citizens -at the Board's firmness.