ON STRIKE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15494, 21 December 1910, Page 8

ON STRIKE.

At the last meeting of the City Council it was reported that tho city clocks had boon keeping excellent time for the preceding fortnight, and it was decided that if they remained upon good behaviour for another week a progress payment of 75 per cent of the contract price should be made to the firm of tradesmen who had undertaken their synchronisation. This final period of probation would have expired last Monday, but on that very day tho clocks again went upon strike. Unfortunately for tho contractors, the striking was erratic, and it really seems as if we arc as far as ever from securing anything like reliability from tbe town timepieces. There is an old story that tells of a sea captain whose chronometer never kept anything liko time, but he declined to have it regulated, on the ground that it was only a simple matter of calculation to ascertain the correct hour from its vagaries. When the hands pointed to half-past four and it struck twelve he know it was three minutes to seven, and from that basis he could work out tho correct time at any hour. But the city clocks provide us with no starting point of that kind, and we have got to the stage at which “each tick is a hope and each tack is a fear.” Tt was to be expected that when tho work of synchronisation was undertaken there would he a certain amount of disorganisation for a little while, but the months have rolled by and people are still liable to have their nerves upset by seeing the minute hand of the Post Office Clock skip gaily over a casual half-hour at a gait which the owner of a trotting horse might envy, and to hear the bells chime ninety-four when tho hands register one. Its performances are, of course, an interesting study in the charm of variety, but when they lead to missed trains and late dinners and lost appointments the sufferers are apt to think that they are paying rather too dearly for their entertainment. Sobersided citizens, who may have enjoyed tho joke at first, are becoming sick and tired of this chronographical vaudeville, and it is quite time tho City Council insisted upon the work being completed properly.