THE SQUARE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 46, 23 January 1939, Page 6

THE SQUARE

CONTRAST IN CONDITIONS. 25 YEARS AGO. With tho march of time it is ever interesting to reflect on conditions or the past. Twenty-five years ago the gardens in the Square in Palmerston North were surrounded by post and chain fences and “sticky-leaved” hedges, dark green in winter and powdered in summer with the dust which rose from the metal roads. The noisy sounds of a few motor cars could be heard above the jingle of harness and the clip-clop or horses’ hooves. Public conveyances were confined to a horse bus which, went up Broad Street to Terrace End and a row of large black cabs, in great i-equest on wet days. At dusk the lamp-lighter, with his long pole, turned on the gas lamps on their tall standards at the corners, where thousands of moths nightly incinerated .themselves. There were dark tunnels under the trees and mysterious tangles of undergrowth behind the creaking iron gates. For children the Square was a neverending source of delight, varying as to whether mother or nursemaid decided to spend the afternoon in the rose garden, where there was nothing to do but run up and down the steps of Te Peeti Te Awe Awe’s statue, or the duck pond enclosure, where time passed all too quickly in running over and down the bridge, feeding the ducks and playing on the cannon in exactly the way children do to-day. The King .Edward VII Coronation memorial was then a drinking fountain in the garden where the War Memorial now stands, and a quaint little rocky cave occupied its present position in the centre of the fountain. Most of the buildings were wooden then, and few boasted more than one floor. Window-dressing seemed to consist of displaying as many articles as possible in as small a space as possible and exhibiting the rest in bins on , the street. The shoppers came in leisurely style and tethered their gig horses to rings provided outside, with no thought of parking restrictions. But now one might almost be in a different town, especially at _ night, when numerous signs flash their brilliant messages across the skv, _ and j scarlet buses and stream-lined limou-, sines glide over the smooth bitumen ; to deposit crowds of passengers at the glittering doors of cinemas. By day the streets arc busy with traffic and crowds of people hurrying in j and out of large up-to-date offices and shops and selecting their purchases from goods tastefully displayed behind large expanses of plate glass. The gardens have undergone a transformation, t-00. Gone are the tangled masses of trocs and shrubs, the hedges, tile creaking iron gates and the post and chain fences. The gay borders and smooth lawns lie open now to the gaze of the casual passer-by —a green oasis in the heart of a rapidly growing city. Gone .are the cabs, and the horses for the most part, but a few’ of the tethering posts remain, used occasionally by modern horsewomen, clad in trousers and bare-headed.

Some things remain. The old cannons still keep guard—but who knows for how long? Tho children still come to feed the clucks, and Te Peeti Te Awe Awe still watches the world go by from his tranquil pedestal.