POSTS GONE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 74, 1 April 1929, Page 3

POSTS GONE

LEANERS' PREDICAMENT

Both Mark Twain and Max O'Jtell made remarks concerning the leaning liatrits of tho Australian,, says the "Melbourne "Age." ' They studied them during their visits to Australia. It was usually a lamp post that attracted tho leaner. But the removal of lamp posts, which are a rarity in Sydney, may have minimised the leaning habit. Any vestigo of it tliat was left will soon disappear. Those who still have a craving to lean against ..onietliiiig will have to get out to the country and find a boundary fence or a few gum trees. Sydney will 'soon be a city without any posts of any kind. Every verandah post in the city has been condemned, and every awning has either to be suspended or taken down altogether, and tho Continental sunshade substituted. That is if the shopkeeper desires shade at all. This is one of the things which the Civic Commissioners have insisted on reforming.' Gangs of men have been working overtime getting the posts away. Streets now present a spaciousness which wo never thought possible in .Sydney, where the old-fashioned surveyors followed the cow tracks into the country and added a few feet for pedestrians. Tho removal of the old unsightly post awnings was not done without a great deal of grumbling on Ihe part of properly '-owners; but tho improvement in the appearance• uf (lie streets of the city has added pounds por foot on to property. Property salesmen are not slow to point this out in working a client up to close a deal. The alacrity with which the Civic Commission's regulations sii-o carried out is in striking contrast to the old-fashioned way under the direction of the aldermen, who were, not above accepting a little in advance to save property owners from expense. Suspended awnings were ordered more than a decade ago—but nobody seemed to mind what the council decided to do.