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Press, Volume LV, Issue 16547, 12 June 1919, Page 6

It used to be said a good many years ago—probably quite inaccurately—that one of the Wangnnui papers, greatly uplifted by the spectacle of several small vessels lying at the wharf at one time, came out with the proud statement that Wanganui was ''getting more like London every day." A Wanganui man at Home just now might claim that London was getting more like "VVannanui. For London has only just

• reached the 6tage of talking about th< conversion of its telephone system fron | manual to automatic operation wherea Wanganui was one of the smaller town which in the report of the Post ant ■ Telegraph I>epartment last year weri • reported to be in a fair way to Becurt the installation of the automatic sys ■ tern, and as far as we know may have i' by this time. Christchurch, of course saw the inauguration of the system i month ago, so that, in that respect al least, we are ahead of the heart of th( Empire. ♦ Why London has thus lagged behiw is not made clear in an interesting article on tho subject in the "Dailj Telegraph," in which it is stated that tho automatic system is already ir operation in several towns in England including A'cr!nj.ton B'nckburn. C'hep stow, I>arlington, JXidhy. Epsom, II?re ! ford, Newport, Paisley, Portsmouth, an,- : Leeds. The last-named town is tin | latest of these mentioned to bj equip I pod. and its system embodies all thr improvement i that have been intro ducod as the result of experience. Th< . Christchurch installation, which is t; ■ ho iwprcved later on, provides for on'n 127) subscribers, but the system ap ' pears to be capable of almost uniimitei , expansion. There are already worKin; j in America, we are told, automatic ex j changes with more than 40,CC0 sub ; seribors. and tlu' exchange at Chicagr j is laid out for the eventual acccmmodn | tion of a million iin> s. London, acroul ing to a recent authority, had last yeai some 277.C00 telephones, or 3.9 per 1(X of the population, a proportion greatly exceeded by that of the great An:ericar I cities, which ranges from 11 7 per cent j in New York to 18.1 per cent, in Chiien go. It remains to be seen whethei the proposed installation of the automatic system in London will go anj further in view of tho fact that in Montreal tho wireless telephone has already been put to commercial uses. Lieutenant Lockloar, tho latest as pirant for trans-Atlantic flight honours was referred to in yesterday's cable a; having given exhibitions of air stunts "changing from one aeroplane to another while flying." As a matter oi fact, this is a somewhat feeble description of the feat. "What this particularly daredevil airman does is to hana head downwards from the undercarriage of an aeroplane in- flight, witl: the engine cut off, and drop on to another machino flying underneath. AVc assume that at tho moment when the airman lets go, tho latter machine is as closo below him as it is safe to tak? it, but even so, the act is an extremely dangorous one, for if the performer dropped a moment too soon or too late the next thing he would hit would be the earth. So far ho appears to have no competitors in this neck-risking stunt. A recent photograph in a New York paper showed him standing on the uppor plane of an aeroplane in mid-air, apparently preparing to take up his position for the drop. ♦ In view of conflicting reports that have been published at different times regarding the condition of Itheimn Cathedral as the result of German artillery fire, an authoritative statement has just been issued. It is a lamentable document. The Cathedral was one of tho chief glories of Gothic art in all Europe. Its history extended over many centuries, and tradition creditod its sit© with being tho place where Clovis was baptised. In many ways it was intimately associated with the history of medieval Franco, and it held a place iu the hearts of the French people such as was given to no other building. It has been suggested that it was for these reasons that the Germans took special pains to injure it. They succeeded only too well. The great walls are still standing, but the western facade is badly battered, most of the pinnacles on the southern front have been shot away, the roof has several large holes in it, the .high altar is merely a mass of debris, the choir has completely disappeared, and most of the rich stained glass has been destroyed. It has been estimated that it will take a generation to repair the Cathedral, and it will probably remain in its present condition for years, a monumont to German vandalism.