The question that is being asked at present is whether rail fares are to be increased next year. This is one of several alternatives: with which railway company faced in trying to solve their economic difficulties. In the first ight months of this year, millions more passengers were carried than in the same period for. 1928, but millions less monty have been earned, This is due to introducing cheap and reduced fares and extending the availability of weekend tickets. It is understood that! no change ely to be made until the excursion period begins An example of the loss by railway companies is given by the IMS. figures. Com. pared with 1928—and 1928 was apparently an unsatisfactory year financially—their full-fare passengers up to August this year were 18,800,000 fewer and receipts down by £1,300,000. On the other hand passengers at reduced rates (including excursion and week-end) increased by 9,800,000 and receipts £600,000. The nett result was that! the IALS. carried half a million more people and drew £700,000 less, If an economic position is to te established, therefore, it seems as. though cither a much greater number of passengers must use the services of that fares must be increased. Any attempt to increase fares by the withdrawal of the naw facilities, which are warmly appreciated, will be met with great} disfavour by the public and a proposal of that sort would be opposed by the statisticians in the companies, for four-fifths of the cost of transporting any particular passenger exists whether the dividual travels or not. way experts consider that losses have reached rock-bottom and that] companies could afford to go on meeting the losses of income that exist without the position growing appreciably graver, at least for some long time. Economies have been achieved, they say, and_ these have saved the situation. "They ask.-how. road transport is to be met, except by cheaper fares. Truly, it is a dificult problem for the railway companies, and one which will soon have to be solved.
The Itinerant Barber Many girls, unable to obtain work hairdressers in London and other cities, are visiting villages travelling barbers. They make their rounds en bicycles or motor-eyeies, with their scissors, carling: irons," beauty lotions. and other impedimenta in a basket in front, and wear white overalls. One girl covers a radius of ten miles from Two Chinese, Man Fat and You Ah-Hing—who were represented by a Chinese selicitor—were as a result charged with possessing articles for opium smoking and frequenting a house at Limehouse-causeway for the purpose of opium smoking, and were essen sent to prison for two months on each charge, the sentences to run concurrently, and' they were also recommended for deportation. The "Daily Express" fives the fol-owing full story "of the raid:
Detective Arthur Lount, of Scot Iandyard, told the story of the rai At 3.2) p.m. yesterday," he sai ith other detectives I went to the house at limehouse-causeway, which Tentered by virtue of a search war
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.