CHARM OF PRAGUE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 305, 22 November 1934, Page 3

CHARM OF PRAGUE.

The old-world charm of Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, has made a lasting impression upon Mrs Bohemil Pospisil, who has returned to Dunsdin after spending some years in that country. Mrs Pospisil, formerly Miss Eileen Spence, of Dunedin, met her husband, a Czech journalist, when be visited the Dominion four years ago in the course of a world tour, and later returned with him to Czechoslovakia. Prague, she stated to a reporter, is a city with a population of 3,000,000, and is divided into the old city and the. modern. It is in the former that the visitor finds the greatest attraction. Here, fronting streets which have witnessed the nageantry of Central European life for hundreds of years, many of the houses were huilt centuries ago. That desire of the mediaeval builder to beautify all that lie touched with expressions of his own artistic personality had given to these old houses many unusual features. Such, for instance, was the custom of decorating the fronts with gaily coloured pictures of scenes from everyday life, and so jealous were the authorities of the city’s architectural beauty that it was illegal, when renovating a house, to interfere with the front of the building. A building frequently commented upon by tourists was the old Town Hall, with its famous, clock. When the clock struck the hour of one, the figure of one of Christ’s Disciples was seen to emerge from the tower and, after presenting itself briefIv, to retire again. When the hour of two was struck two figures appeared, and so on until, at mid-day, the whole 12 Disciples were represented. Every visitor to Prague, said Airs Pospisil, was taken to see the figures emerge as the clock chimed.