THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 135, 10 June 1933, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

The recent spectacle of a young domestic assistant for the first time in the city, andeavouring to blow out the gas was amusing, but understandable, as NEW LAMPS she- had been reared FOR OLD. among the backbloek kerosene lamps. Anyway, she serves to remind one of the lamplighter who is no longer with us, although here and there, even in New Zealand, there still remain as reminders of ancient times the lamps the lamplighters lit. It has been said that the lamplighter was always a thin man, because no living person could get fat who dashed up one street and down another, perpetually pushing his. lighted taper (in a brass cage on the end of a long pole) into the lofty street lamp. The lamplighter used to poke his pole through the opening at the bottom of the lamp, pull the tap down with the attached hook, and then push the imprisoned taper up against the sizzling gas. After midnight the lamplighter would go around again putting them all out. It was claimed that no modern slimming, exercise ever equalled the profession of "lamplighting. Prior to the long-pole system, the lighter "had to bo a climber, too, and used to tote a ladder with him. In pregas days the poor chap not only had to fill the lamp with conl oil or other fluid fuel, but had to trim them. It seems to be but yesterday that a New Zealand lamplighter entered Parliament and stayed there for many years. He was, if you remember, a live' wire aud one of the few men in Parliament who ever got his own poetry into "Hansard." A son of his is in Parliament now. He never lit lamps —except the intellectual variety.