ANY OLD TIME

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 139, 9 December 1924, Page 15

ANY OLD TIME

ON THE CITY CLOCKS

" VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF TIME."

(By "Rec")

( The beastly ■ wetness of Saturday having diverted my mind and intentions from golf, and the complicated matters appertaining to the correct timing in the swing, my thoughts turned to the correct timing of clocks and other alleged time pieces. The result was a little tour through the main city thoroughfares with the "object of seeing just which of the many 'clocks which blazen the time at unsuspecting citizens, off to catch trains and other conveyances, could be relied upon. The result was illuminating. 'Working-on the Q.E.D. principle that if the main clock at the General Post Office was incorrect, then all the other clocks in the city had been set a bad example,' I wandersd down to the portion of the city known as the "square," and arrived tihere just as the clock chimed out the hour. : The minute hand was near enough to it for all practical purposes, but I found that jthe big clock was a little slow in the take-off, and four minutes had elapsed by the time the minute hand had covered three. Haying set my watch carefully, I dodged round to the main entrance to find that J.he small clock was showing a:'minute slow on the big one. .That was on one face. After witnessing.a few of the divergences between the double and treble faced -clocks in other portions of the city, I afterwards regretted that I had not seen the other face. The clock on the Exchange Buildings had apparently benefited from the long ! rest it. was subjected to some time ago,. | and its time exactly corresponded with what! took to be the right time by the Post Office chimes. The next visit was to v the little , coterie of clocks situated |at Government Buildings,' ~a#d. in the j area in and round the'railway station^ I The_ Government clock was working up ;to time—much better than being a little I slow oji a Saturday morning, and a better .attempt at right time than that made by the hotel (clock, on a beer barrel on the Quay, which was a couple of minutes ahead of time. It was'the only clock that was ahead of itself in the whole outfit, but the thought passed' that !it would" probably be back to time, or erring the other way, before' 6 p.m. • The'tramway clocks varied a fraction of a minute, but the one that was right waß the pn» m the dispatcher's office. Probably to help people who had been cutting things a little fine, the platform clock at Lambton was a couple of minutes slow-rthat is, one side of it was. On the other face the minute hand had got half a minute ahead of its' companion, while the clock in the station general office had made up the two minutes that it companions were slow, and was ticking ;iway regularly in the knowledge of its correctness. Right up town the collection'of clocks .visible from the Royal Oak corner were getting along vei-y nicely within fractions of the correct time,, but a walk'! along Manners street brought put what 1 knew I should find somewhere Here was a clock that did the'thing properly and^was .;«ght minutes slow and showing it off on three, faces.. At least, two of B. 6 ■ f»c _es.,W;ero, showing twenty: minutes 1 past, while the .Post Office . clock said 28 minutes past. The third face was apparently making a desperate effort to I catch up the lost minutes, and a minute ahead of its two companions Just as the tour finished my watch! ttT! t lnffi PaSV? ld l .at that momen I the Post Office clock chimed. Whether ; the.clock-gained that minute on the way I g^own, or whether, my watch lost the minute advantage it had at four minutes foYvbs? qUestioß * Bee D 0 h0 *» °f