Foreign News: Romance Clipped

London’s war-scarred, double-decked buses yielded to the call of spring. Last week they ran in pairs through the crowded streets. The harassed Passenger Transport Board had a new problem: sex. Tender feelings had blossomed between male drivers and their trousered woman ticket takers, who are known as “clippies.” Chivalrous drivers, closely following another bus, cut their own passenger loads, thus greatly reducing their clippies’ chores. The consequent disruption of schedules and the savage reaction of stranded customers encouraged the P.T.B. to step up the replacement of clippies by male conductors. Romance in a bus, the P.T.B. felt, should be a prerogative of passengers only.