The city ordinances and regulations requiring separation on street cars are practically the same as the State statutes on the subject. The ordinances, regulations, and statutes all require that the accommodations for passengers of both races shall be equal. The three methods of separation are (1) separate cars, (2) partitioned cars, and (3) seats assigned to each race. The only city that unqualifiedly requires separate cars is Montgomery, Alabama. The ordinance was passed October 15, 1906, over the mayor’s veto, he vetoing it because he believed it would be impracticable. When the law went into effect, November 23, the service was materially reduced because of the scarcity of cars.[585] The State laws of Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi give the choice of using two or more cars or partitioned cars. A number of the ordinances require that the cars be divided either by movable screens or partitions. They are movable so as to apportion the seating capacity to the requirements of each race. But in by far the greatest number of cases, the separation is accomplished by the conductor assigning white and colored passengers to different seats. Practically without exception, the colored passengers are required to be seated from the rear to the front of the car; the white, from the front to the rear. On railroad cars, the colored passengers are almost invariably assigned to the front compartments. The colored passengers on street cars are seated in the rear in order—to give the reason as stated by the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama—to do “away with the disagreeable odors that would necessarily follow the breezes.” In the closed cars of that city, however, the colored passengers are seated in front so as to give the white passengers the rear for smoking. In other cities, the two rear seats are reserved for smoking, so the colored passengers begin to sit on the third seat from the rear. As the car fills, the races get nearer and nearer to one another. North Carolina provides that white and colored passengers shall not occupy contiguous seats on the same bench. Virginia, likewise, prohibits white and colored passengers from sitting side by side on the same bench unless all the other seats are filled. The conductor has the power to require passengers to change their seats as often as is needful to secure actual separation of the races. The laws do not prohibit the running of special cars exclusively for either race, provided the regular cars are run.