NUISANCES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 25, 24 June 1893, Page 589

NUISANCES.

There are • Nuisances’ who delight in a fall omnibus or railway carriage to plant their backs in a corner, and extend their body and legs diagonally across the car, thus materially reducing the microscopic space commonly allowed per individual. It is scarcely safe to discourse on the subject of babies who drown the performance at a theatre, or, when learning to walk, monopolise the footpath in the street; but a month or two ago we saw a respectable Monsieur, Madame et Be be monopolising the whole width of a public and densely-crowded pathway. A quiet, peaceable looking dog trotted innocently by, between Madame and Bebe without a word, whereupon the infant screamed amain. * That t*east of a dog has frightened the poor dear,’ was the ‘ Nuisance's ’ remark, as she forthwith belaboured with the parasol the unoffending quadruped. Madame seemed sublimely unmindful of the fact that whereas the dog had a perfect light on the pavement, her baby had not, but should either have been carried or left at home. A crowded thoroughfare is not the proper place to teach an infant the rudiments of the art of walking. Neither is it right to sacrifice the comfort of its seniors to its incapacity to appreciate amusements provided in theatresand elsewhere for those of more mature years, to whom the coral and bells would prove but sorry entertainment. Maternity has its penalties, and the self sacrifice entailed upon the mother is one of them. Another horror is the perambulator fiend, who pushes the vehicle over everyone’s legs. She should be treated as the bicyclist has been treated, relegated to the carriage way. No doubt it would be awkward for her in Queen street or Willisstreet. But then such vehicles should not be taken there, but along the more sequestered side streets and squares. Of the bicyclist we can scarcely trust ourselves to write. He need not be a * Nuisance,’ but he almost invariably is. A pedes tiian crossing the road —carefully calculating distance to dodge the crowd of vehicles—is suddenly thrown into confusion by the warning bell, giving absolutely no indication of the direction from which the sound emanates, and has to pause and look round, perhaps under a horse’s hoofs, to avoid colliding with the demon that is almost as invisible, and quite as inaudible, as a ghost, but, unfortunately, by no means so unsubstantial. We have reserved to the last the most pernicious • Nuisance ’ of all—viz., the women who will crowd into a smoking carriage, and who meet your remonstrance with the assurance that * they don’t mind smoking.’ Our consideration is not for them, but for the unhappy smokers, who, yearning for a whiff, are perforce compelled to abstain by reason of the smoking compartments being full. In the

early days of the railroads, smokers formed a much smaller proportion of the entire population than now, and to smoke in public was indelicate. But thing* are changed. Smokers are in the majority, and who do not smoke, but do not object to it, form the greater part of the remainder, and yet each train still provides smoking accommodation for only about five per cent, of its freight. When shall we learn from the Continental system to make smoking permissible throughout the train except in special non smoking compartments ? It is * niet rooken,’ • nicht rauchen,’ 'defense de farmer,’ which greets you in the few compartments in Holland, Germany, or France, thereby making the minority the exception, instead of as with us the rule, and thus causing well-nmaning but thoughtless folk to enrol themselves among the most * dog in-the-manger’ class of selfish * Nuisances.’