“My Lady Nicotine”

One of the most pressing questions facing railway undertakings is that of meeting the respective needs of the smoker and the non-smoker in passenger travel. Normally it is the custom at Home to label certain portions of the passenger trains for the use of smokers, while in some continental lands the opposite practice prevails and smoking may be indulged in everywhere except in those portions of trains marked “non-smoking” (says our London Correspondent).

In recent years there has been a marked growth of the smoking habit, and to meet changing conditions the Great Western Railway of England has just arranged for twenty-five per cent. of its passenger accommodation in trains to be labelled “non-smoking,” leaving the remaining seventy-five per cent. available for ardent worshippers at the shrine of “My Lady Nicotine.” This arrangement will, it is thought, be appreciated by passengers generally. It is not only the male smoker who has nowadays to be considered. There is also a large proportion of smokers among the fair sex, while many women not actually indulging in the habit themselves seem to love to journey in the more or less fragrant atmosphere of a smoking compartment. It is just by adapting themselves to changing circumstances such as these that railways continue to maintain their popularity. In railway working, as in other walks of life, it is the little things that count.