FAULTY WIRES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 75, 30 March 1939, Page 6

FAULTY WIRES.

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY. DEATH OF YOUNG BOY. SOBBING FATHER'S PROTEST, (From Our Own Corespondent.) SYDNEY, March 24. "Are you going to wait until faulty electrical wires kill someone before you repair them?'' A sobbing father made this plea to the City Coroner this week at the inquest on his seven-year-old son, Brian -James Ramsay, of Bexlev. While at his playmate's home the boy had climbed on to the roof. A scream brought his friend's mother out. She found him hanging from the electric wires and got him down, but he was dead when the ambulance took him to hospital. According to an electrical inspector the iron roof of the verandah was defectively earthed, being in contact with the conduits passing through it. They, in turn, were defectively earthed to the water pipe. The insulation on the consumer's mains was badly weathered ami Hare in patches and the county council service mains were also bad. The inspector, however, said that unless an army of employees was put on, it would be impossible to make certain that all installations were properly insulated. To do this would mean increasing the cost of electricity very heavily, and from a practical point of view he did not think it would be justified. A different opinion was expressed later iv the chairman of the Sydney County Council (electricity authority) Councillor Parry. Me said wires of the type developed in 1026 had been examined and found still in good condition. They are covered by tape, which in turn is covered by two layers of cotton braiding, and the whole is. impregnated with a weather-resisting compound of red lead. As the result of State legislation put through last session all electricity supply authorities have been given five years, until the end of 1942, to make sure that all electrical appliances and installations are safe. The Sydney County Council has to replace .">O,OOO services of the pre-192ti type, which it will do at the rate of 10.000 a year, using approximately 750 miles of new cable.