or not enough to sit on. They squat on dirty floors and eat dirty food. They are permitted to throw the leav- ings of their food and spit where they like, sit how they like and smoke everywhere. The closets attached to these places defy description. I have not the power adequately to describe them without committing a breach ot the laws of decent speech. Disinfecting powder, ashes or disinfecting fluids are unknown. The army of flies buzzing about them warns you against their use. But a third-class traveller is dumb and helpless. He does not want to complain even though to go to these places may be to court death. I know passengers who fast while they are travelling just in order to lessen the misery of their life in the trains. At Sonepur flies having failed, wasps have come forth to warn the public and the authorities, but yet to no pur- pose. At the Imperial Capital a certain thiid class booking office is a Black-Hole fit only to be destroyed.
Is it any wonder that plague has become cr.demic in India ? Any other result is impossible where passen- gers always leave some dirt where they go ar.d take more on leaving?
On Indian trains alone passengers smoke Vv-.th im- punity in all carriages irrespective of the presence of the fair sex and irrespective of the protest of non- smokers. And this, notwithstanding a b>e-law which prevents a passenger from smoking without the per- mission of; his fellows in the compartment which is not allotted to smokers.
The existence of the awful war cannot be allowed
to stand in the way of the removal of this g gantic
evil. War can be no warrant for tolerating dirt and
overcrowding. One could understand an entire stoppage
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