RELIC OF THE PAST

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 180, 2 August 1938, Page 7

RELIC OF THE PAST

ALBERT PARK LAMP.

SOLITARY SURVIVOR.

vnuasT-uoKT evolution.

(By A.F.)

Not far from the Old Colonists' Museum and at the top of the steps leading from Kitchener Street to the higher levels of Albert Park, there itands a solitary relic of a dark past. Left there perhaps by our City Fathers to throw light upon the street-lighting methods of the Victorian era, nightly * gas-lit lamp futilely carries on a long lost fight with its brilliant rival, the modem electric flood-light.

This lonely survivor means nothing to the present generation, but to those approaching the Psalmist's "three score years and ten," it brings back memories of those "Good Old Days" when the street lamp-lighter came round at dusk with hie ladder, or perhaps on horseback, with a hooked pole and a lighted taper to turn on and light the naked gas jets. On moonlight nights he "had a holiday.

Later came that revolution in illumination—the incandescent gas mantle, and the gas lighter's task wae made easier; all he had to do then was to pull a chain and the lanip lighted from the ever-burning pilot-light. Then, the lamp-lighter lost hie job; some inventive genius devised the clock-work apparatus which automatically turned the lamp on and off at regulated intervals, such as is attached to the lonesome light in the Park. Now, through the medium of electricity, an| engineer simply turns a switch in some far-off power house and in a flash is accomplished to the extent of a thou-•ttnd-fold, that which gave a number of wen hours of drudgery at all times of Ik* night, wet or fin*.

Yet those far-away days had their compensations. An unsophisticated, selfreliant people made their own simple pleasures and entertained one another. "Nice" girls never "made-up"—unless it was done so artistically that we didn't discover it. There wae no "Emergency Unexployinent Tax," no "Sales Tax," no need to talk of "Social Security," no S , but here we are getting on dangerous ground, and there's going to be an election soon.