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Show CONDUCTORS WHO FLIRT. Newspapers have recently been compelled to chronicle many elopements in which conductors of railway trains have figured. Most of these elopements have occurred in the West, the States of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin having their full shares. Within the past few days a conductor on one of the lines of railway whose terminus are in New York, it is said, has left his wife and eloped with a young school girl in the habit of riding on his train. The opportunities of car conductors for scraping acquaintances with impressionable women and romantic girls are very great, so great, indeed, that on many lines decent people have felt that the manner of some conductors toward women and girls who are either bad or foolish enough to accept their attentions has been shameful. Good ladies whose daughters ride with them in the cars do not like to have examples of flirtations brought before their eyes; nor do they desire to have their daughters ride alone in trains where they may be insulted by a stare or a leer. People are likely to look with respect upon the uniformed man in authority and there are gentlemen of intelligence who would be bored in conversation with a fellow-passenger, but who are vain and weak enough to feel proud of the sole attention of a uniformed conductor. Women who at home are compelled to be staid and discreet but who feel that a journey to or from the city is the occasion for a lark-women, of course, who at heart are not untouched by the spirit of intrigue-do not appreciate that all the people in the car know when they are giving glances to a handsome conductor, or when they are receiving unusual attendance from him. If grown men and women are vain and weak it is not surprising that a silly, romantic school girl, who feels that riding alone on the cars is a kind of freedom which many other girls do not enjoy, should be so indiscreet as to accept the attentions of the insinuating man in uniform. There are girls whose hearts are so pure, and whose culture is so good that their manner is their own defense; but there are some who giggle and think that it is smart to flirt. To them often the conductor comes as a beau, and sometimes as a libertine. It is hard for them to escape the extreme penalty of their folly when they have once begun a flirtation, and if they are not led astray they are at least brought to the shame of insult or of a sudden appreciation of danger. Not a great while ago, through the investigation of the Herald, a prominent railway company issued an order threatening dismissal to any conductor who permitted brakemen to make demonstrations towards ladies at stations along their route. The order worked well, and it was adopted by most other railways. The roads may now look back at the manner of conductors themselves, for the habit of flirtation is not at all limited to a few men. Meanwhile the subject is one which is of the utmost importance to parents, who if they do not have faith in the moral strength of their daughters, must devise their own policy. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.-N. Y. Herald. |
