SYDNEY IN TABLOID.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 194, 18 May 1938, Page 3

SYDNEY IN TABLOID.

INTERESTING FACTS AND FIGURES. Mr W. Jones, of Musselburgh, a Main Body soldier who went with the Now Zealand contingent to Sydney, evidently kept his eyes and ears open while on tlie trip. The following information he supplied to an “Otago Daily Times” reporter should prove of interest: — The Gap, Sydney, famous for suicides; during the depression, two a week. Hotels (600). No drinks “on the house”; run by breweries, ,so little counter lunch and none “on the house.” Ten thousand tramway men, 1300 ’bus men, 13,000 taxis/ over 300,000 motor-cars. Only 3 feet tide Sydney Harbour. New Zealand R.S.A. invited “Aussie” R.S. to Wellington for 1940 Exhibition. Many “Diggers” have already applied. A country hotel has a notice: “This is not a bank. We cash no cheques. They sell no beer.” Very little smoking on the streets, compared with Dunedin, and none on non-smoking departments on trams and ’buses. Met “Watty” South, who was at the brick works where Lambert’s is now (opposite Drill Hall), in 1871. Remembers Ned Devine’s coach running to Oamaru from Dunedin. Coach with six grey horses. At the Cenotaph, Martin place, all go hare-lieaded. At restaurants, rock oysters 3s a dozen fried. Very small ones.

Nearly all houses are brick. Great work in them. Bricks all colours and very fine mortar. Some in many different shades on one house. Mostly concrete roads; none corrugated. Five lines of traffic on some loads, going two abreast each way .vitli lane in centre. A Jot of oneway streets in centre of city.

: The Sydney Bridge weighs 52,780 tons. Dr. Brad field s bridge was built on the calculation that in 1950 Australia’s populace would number 14,639,000—5,850,000 in N.S.W. and 2,226.000 in Sydney.

Taxi drivers very alert and have to be. Cut in on each other. Cunning, too, generalv charge Is 9d, 2s 9d, and so on. No “Digger” will wait for the change. Girls (some of them) put on lipstick very heavily and look hideous. Lots of women drinking in bars or lounges. Ale very light. Very little drunkenness. Plenty of New Zealanders over in Sydney. Stuck up often by them; also autograph hunters.