In Prussian Poland the goods and cattle trains are prohibited from
carrying passengers under any conditions, and, however urgent their
necessities, the only exception allowed being the herd-keepers in charge
of cattle. So strictly is this regulation enforced that even medical men
are not allowed to go by them when called for on an emergency, and where
life and death may be the result of their quick transit. This is
generally considered a great hardship, the more so as there are only two
passenger trains daily on the above railroads. But the inventive genius
of a small German innkeeper at Lissa has hit upon a clever plan of
circumventing the government regulations in a perfectly legitimate
manner. He keeps a goat, which he hires out to persons wanting to
proceed in a hurry by a cattle train, at the rate of 6d. per station, the
passenger then applying for a ticket as the person in charge of the goat,
which he obtains without any difficulty. In this manner a well-known
nobleman, residing at Lissa, is frequently seen travelling by the cattle
train to Posen, in the passenger’s carriage, and the goat is so tame that
a very slender silk ribbon suffices to keep it from straying.