A HOPEFUL INVENTOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19101, 20 August 1925, Page 10

A HOPEFUL INVENTOR.

MAYOR'S AID SOUGHT. FULLY STOCKED FARM WANTED. The ingenuous tone of a tetter addressed to the Mayor caused some amusement at a meeting of the Newmarket Borough Council last evening. . The letter dealt with the erection of a safety device at railway crossings, but the writer did not come directly to the point. "You will no doubt think it rather strange." he began, "that I am a farm worker, just keeping from starvation and, feeding three children and a wife o?j £3 , a week, paying lOd per lb. for meat, and living on a dairy farm and paying Is lid for butter, and so on, not mentioning six. and a-lialf days' work a week—l 4 hours - a day—and scrambling a garden on tho other half day." , Tho writer now turned to tho real sub-. ject of his letter, stating that he had a , device for automatically closing and open- -• ing crossing gates while a train passed. "As you appear to bo a man like my- ~ self with no friends in Parliament, you might help," he added. He explained th*c his reason for writing to the Mayor was -, that he had previously submitted a device for preventing trains from running into slips to the Railway Department, - and after being referred to tho "everlasting committee" had been informed that: the device would be too costly to erect. It was the concluding portion of the. letter that caused most amusement. "If . the device worked, it read, "I would want paying in a lump sum. I only want enough to get a farm of my own, and a few pounds to have at the back of me. If the Government gives me a farm fully stocked, and, of course, a little ready cash, they could take the patent and use it where thev liked." The letter was received.