Cheap tickets also are issued to workers, commutators, families, and to other classes of travelers. Schoolchildren not more than nineteen years of age and members of Parliament ride free. Children, however, are limited to a maximum distance of sixty miles.
The ticket system of the New Zealand railways has, with some warrant, been called cumbrous and antiquated; yet it is not so deficient as many complaining travelers allege. It is not true, as has been charged, that tickets can be purchased only on the day of departure. At all the chief cities and at about a dozen other places tickets can be purchased at railway stations the day before entraining. Nor is it wholly true that tickets cannot be purchased until within fifteen minutes of the departure of trains, but it is almost so, for only in a score of towns can they be bought at any time during the hours of business. At all other stations the fifteen-minute rule prevails, excepting on race-days and holidays. It is true, however, that the Railway Department has no uptown ticket agencies. This is an item of economy that means a large saving to the Government, but to the traveling public it is a cause of annoyance and inconvenience, second only to that occasioned by the apparently unnecessary time limit on ticket purchasing. Still it is compensated for in the principal cities by the passenger's ability to buy tickets at private booking agencies or at those of the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts.
Another very annoying circumstance is the lack of
