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Evening Star, Issue 21968, 2 March 1935, Page 20

Ladies’ shoes, horseshoes, and the hardwood decking of a wharf are the three factors in a problem which puzzled the Railway Department for many years, and is now mystifying the Harbour Board. The wharf is at Port Chalmers, and a few years ago it was taken over from the Railway Department. Railway trucks carry goods to and from the ships moored at the wharf. The trucks are shunted up and down the wharf by draught horses, and that is where the unsolvablo crux problem lies. The decking plank? are placed an inch or two apart, so that the horses may “ pall their clogs ” on the wooden surface, and exert a pidling force on a plane parallel to the wheelbase, of such magnitude that the trucks are sent flying and crashing along the wharf. Thereat the second factor of the problem emerges. The space left open between the decking planks to convenience the draught horses becomes a snare ■ for lady passengers embarking or disembarking from the overseas and intercolonial liners at the wharf. The ladies’ shoe heels jam between the planks, and are wreched off by the ladies in desperate efforts to get out of the way of the shunting .trucks. The ladies’ shoes are sacrificed that the horses’ shoes may obtain foothold. Similar problems, it is said, have been solved at other seaports equipped with railway wharves, but the deeper problem 01 the Port Chalmers wharf remains unsolved. As an emergency measure ot safety for lady passengers a footway ol boards has just been nailed down the centre of the wharf. It gives temporary relief. The permanent solution would be, it is considered, to flush-deck the wharf. The engineers have the matter in hand. “ Men admire a beautiful complexion, so take plenty of fruit,” says a doctor. Remember, girls, that orange juice may lead to orange blos r soms.

“ I know a man who has influenza all the time.” “ Doesn’t he know that whisky is good for influenza? ” “ That’s why he has it all the time.”-