Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-04-04

Travelling from Milan TO Florence at
night Your correspondents has counted
eighteen passengers compelled by lack OF
room to sleep. or to try to sleep. in the
corridors. either standing up or half re-
Ginning on their baggage Those who were
unable to sleep kept up constant stream
Of converse ton. such as only Italians are
"a pable Of that ~eep was out of the
question even for those who had secured
seats
In italy t-ere is egaiiZed system OF
hrigandagc among the railroad officials
\ we'll known English writer on plliios-
ophy recently told me of an exciting eN-
rerienre ne had at Pisa. Il found he
said. "a party of American women in
great distress because the railway Of
ficials refused to permit their baggage
consisting Ct number OF Saratoga
trunks-to be put on the train because
they were not sealed. or 'plomb i-that is.
stamped with little pieces of lead holding
the ends of wire together A new reg
ula,ion had been made that week that all
luggage must be treated i'm this way.
When I found that the women We're in
such distress I offered to assist them.
told the official that | knew all he want
ed money, and after little diplo-
macy and bribery | managed TO get their
trunks plombed' and put on the train.
Il then decided to have it out with the
station master. I said: You fellows are
all lot of robbers. you know. You held
up the baggage OF these women simply
for the purpose of extracting blackmaii.'
.'Ha was goreeously dressed Official
and he flew into terrible rage. | stepped
into my carriage and sat down. He came
to the door and began to abuse me-
Italian is a splendid language to swear
in. and both OF us used the vernacuiar
~,
little time. ! managed to keep fairly
cool throughout the alteration. and my
opponent kept getting hotter and hotter.
I said a number of extremely unpleasant
things about the Italian system of rob-
bling passengers Finally the train began
to move off. The station master was In
such a rage that he stepped on the foot
board of the coach and threw his card
into my lap. with a challenge to come
back and fight a duel with him.
II laughed heartily in his face and man
aged to finish him off with a Parthian
shot:
Fight duel with you' Not much.
| exclaimed In my country gentlemen
don't fight duels with brigands. "
Not only are passengers systematically
and deliberately robbed by the official
brgands'' employed by the railways, but
tho head officers of the various companies
take every possible advantage of the
travelling public.
For instance not long ago a tourist paid
SO for through sleeping compartments
for himself and family to the south. of
France. At a small station. after they
had all retired for the night. they were
compelled to get up. dress. and go into
another car. The car into which they
were placed was not sleeper. and they
had to sit up all night. They had not
been in this more than five minutes
before two French ladies, half clad and
crying. were thrust into the compart-
ment and had to finish dressing before the
other passengers. The officials had been
most brutal in turning them out. They
had pleaded for time to dress. but it had
been refused There was no excuse for
this whatever as the car they were
turned out of was left standing a sid
ing for two hours. The whole thing was
such an outrage that the tourist began
an action against the sleeping car COM
panS. First, however, he wrote them
several strong letters. threatening all sorts
Of things. 1t was only when he employed