SHAVINGS

Evening Star, Issue 21354, 7 March 1933, Page 2

SHAVINGS

SAFER ELECTRICITY. Following deaths caused by electricity, the New South Wales State Government has called a conference of parties interested to devise a way of safeguarding the public. It is probable that some central authority will be created, to control the introduction and marketing of new electrical devices, and to ensure that the use of such things, when sold, is under conditions which will make them reasonably safe. Under the existing law there are many organisations interested in the control of electrical power and apparatus, but none has the necessary power to control all such activities. There have been five deaths in recent weeks from electricity. CHRISTCHURCH BUILDING. Thirty-seven building permits, for construction work valued at £7,866, were issued by the Christchurch City Council last month, a decrease compared with February of last year, when fortytwo permits were issued for work valued at £8,531. In the eleven months since March, 1932, there has been a considerable fall in permits, compared with the corresponding period of the previous working year. In the eleven months this year the council has issued 484 permits for work, valued at £121,505, whereas up to the end of February last year 532 permits, to the value of -£166,277, had been issued. • ♦ * ♦ STAFFORD STREET ALTERATION. The two-story building, one time known as Stafford House, at the corner of Stafford and Hope streets, is being converted into an up-to-date boarding house. Externally the character and appearance of the building is being altered, while renovations and re-decora-tion are being carried out to the interior. The shop on the corner is being used to provide part of the space for a modernly-appointed dining room and another bedroom.' Figured red pine panelling in Empire style has been selected for the dining room, while numerous up-to-date fittings are being installed throughout the building, which is comprised of ten rooms. : The plans and specifications for this work were prepared by Air D. G. Mowat, and O’Eriscoll Bros, are the contractors. I « * ♦ • SLACKNESS IN HASTINGS. February was the slackest building month experienced in Hastings for many years, and a remarkable feature was that no,permits for any new dwellings were issued (says the ‘ Telegraph ’). As a matter of fact, only two permits were issued during the whole month, one being for a horse-box valued at £4B, and the other for a garage valued at £750. Since April 1, 1932, a total of 162 permits valued at £125,149 have been issued, this being a very marked decrease on the 246 permits valued at £206,690 issued during the same period of the previous year. With so much of the post-’quake building completed, it is only natural that there should be an easing up in the issue of permits, but the big drop this month was certainly surprising.

DESIGNED INDIAN PALACE. Mr Charles Towle, who designed the new church now in the course of erection lor the Auckland Christian Scientists, has had ope assignment which falls to the lot of few architects, according to the 1 New Zealand Observer.’. He (prepared the sketch designs of the palace of an Indian potentate, the Maharajah of Alwar, in whose State a civil yar is now in progress. The maharajah wanted his palace built on a romantic site, a hilltop in the jungle, and Mr Towle spent ten months studying the lay of the land before returning to England to work up the design. Mr Towle served with the original “ Dinks,” the {New Zealand Rifle Brigade, during the Great War, after which he spent six [rears studying architecture in Great [Britain and America. He is a son of the late Mr E. C. Towle, a former manager of the Auckland branch of the ißank of New South Wales.

BIG PROPERTY SALE. Another big property sale was effected in. Christchurch the other day. This was the building known as Carey’s Building, at the corner of Gloucester and Colombo streets. John Bates and Co. Ltd., the china and crystal specialists, were the purchasers, and the price for the freehold of the property was in the vicinity of £40,000. * * • • WAIKATO BRIDGE. Advice has been received by the Waikato County Council that Cabinet has approved of a subsidy not exceeding £B,OOO on a £1 for £2 basis on the cost of constructing a new traffic bridge. it is estimated that the new 'bridge will cost £24,000, the plans from which the estimate was made providing lor a concrete bridge of bowspring arch design, with a 20ft roadway and two footpaths each sft wide. There are three sets of piles 128 ft apart, and one short road span. The total length of the bridge will be 400 ft. •»* ■ • EARTHQUAKE RECONSTRUCTION. Jn both Napier and Hastings a number of fine buildings were completed last month, but the number of new buildings projected is naturally commencing to show signs of slackening on. The appearance of Napier, as it is today, is one which cannot fail to linpiess visitors with the manner in which solidity and construction have been combined great beauty and design and exceedingly artistic decorative finish. Hie total amount now expended on reconstruction according to . permits issued by the Napier Council is £725,122, but other considerations swell the total to £883,984. • * * • THE NEW NAPIER. In performing the reopening of the new buildings constituting the Isapier Hospital, His Excellency the GovernorGeneral, Lord Bledisloe, said that, atter taking what he described as a very interesting tour on .foot around Napier s attractive township, he would like to say how attractive he and Lady Bledisloe found the architecture of the new Napier, with its widened streets and. its happy impression of simple dignity, tasteful colourings and homogeneity of design in its newly erected structures. Particularly he congratulated Napier citizens upon the homogeneity of design since so many modern towns were examples of more or less incongruous architecture, one style with the other. Napier had overcome this difficulty. • • • • INFLUENCE IN CHURCH DESIGN. Many of the imposing church buildings in and around Wellington, and, indeed, in many other parts of the doniion. owe their origin to the architectural ability of the Wellington firm of Clero and Clere. The principal, Mr h. He J. Clere, recently attained his fiftieth year as architect for the Wellington Anglican Diocese —what is believed to he a record for the tenure or such an office in New Zealand. . Most of the more modern buildings in tfie Wellington diocese were designed by Mr Clere, and in recent years, when he has not been actually responsible for design, he has exercised final approval, and has had a great deal to do with the foundation ideas. A number of Catholic buildings are also the work of Mr Cleie, who is the doven of the architects ot Wellington. His work harks back further than that of any still-practising architect in the capital city. • BENEFIT OF SUBSIDY. Probably as a result of the Unemployment ' Board’s building subsidy scheme terminating at the end of December, there was an increase ot 37 per cent in the number of dwellings authorised for erection throughout the dominion during December as compared with December, 1931. As regards other types of construction work, however, verv little activity was apparent, remarks the Government Statistician in commenting on the figures, as a decrease of 24.7 per cent, in the total of all permits issued was recorded from November, and an increase of only 3.3 tier cent, over December, 1931. As indicating how acutely the building trade has 'suffered all through the year, the twelve months’ totals show a decrease of 13.9 per cent, in new dwellings authorised, and‘of 9.9 per cent, for all nermits. in comparison with tlio very low level established in 1931.

Tumblers which are slightly broken or too cracked for use in the house make excellent little greenhouses. Turn them over small seedlings which require protection.