Correspondence.

Press, Volume XII, Issue 1589, 10 December 1867, Page 3

Correspondence.

PUBLIC TIME. TO THE EDITOB OF THB PRESS. Our nerves are scarcely calmed down from the alarm about our copper tokens when another person advertises that our time is all wrong, but that he, with the assistance of Captain White, of the Blue Jacket, has succeeded in catching the accurate time, and Safely landing it in Christchurch ; but in doing this he has completely capsized all our received notions of time, viz., apparent time, mean time, and sidereal time; for instead of the sun and the stars, he has taken the Government clock to regulate this accurate time of his, the said clock being (about) twelve minutes thirty seconds fast —12.30 of his accurate time. Now, Mr Editor, all this is so much bunkum, and only tends to mislead the public. What right has any individual to set us all by the ears with this new time, and the old time, and setting railway time against Government time. The only case I know like it ia at Hokitika, where three different watohmakers, each having a chronometer in their window, assert their time to be " the correct time." I would therefore suggest that, as they have a time-ball in Wellington, and also a Government "transit" fixed, and we are possessed of a telegraph wire, that the Post-office and Government buildings as well as the Te'egraphoffioe should have the mean time at Wellington transmitted daily; indeed, a gun might be fired or a ball dropped by the manipulator in Wellington. Eailways, mails, and business men would then have a Government time to regulate them, and so prevent erratic individuals from suddenly upsetting the nerves of steady-going individuals like Yours, &c, Mebidia.