Progress Nuisances.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 888, 8 March 1889, Page 2

Progress Nuisances .

Everyone recognises the benefit of the electric telegraph and of the telephone, and when the electric light is in lull working order we do not doubt that that will be equally appreciated. But it cannot be denied that these bless ings, conferred on us by modern science, have their drawbacks. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the manner in which these boons are bestowed upon us has its drawbacks. We are not aware that any premium was ever offered for a design showing how tho telegraph, telephone, and electric light could be “ fixed up ” in this city in the manner most inconvenient to the citizens and most disfiguring to the city. We suppose no such premium was really offered- But it not, it only shows how very complete a plan may be obtained without payment of premium to its author—a plan which attains perfcc lion in every point aimed at. Possibly there is no one author of the scheme under which the streets of Wellington have been so intolerably inconvenienced and uglified. Ic may be that a “ multitude of counsellors ” evolved ihe brilliant and complex dtviee. However this may be, there can be no question as to the completeness of the result.

catch the head or nose or shins of the hapless pedestrian. And now, with the laudable view, no doubt, of doing things quite thoroughly, a number of the n w electric light posts are erected close against the gas-lamps and in the line of the paths so that the light is totally cut off from the Whole length of footway, and the lamp might as well be extinguished altogether, for it is totally eclipsed. This at, least c >uld easily have b-en avoided. I - is no defence to sav that when the electriclight, is at work «ve shall not, me the gas-lamps. The electric-light is not yet at work, and it may be some time before it is. Even then may not work well at first, or always afterward go wi'liout an occasional hitch. In these cases rec >urse must be had to the gas, and there is no reason why, pending the starting of the new light, the streets should have their present light deliberately shut off.

Even in the former days when we had only the telegraph, the posts and wires were by no means an ornament to the thoroughfares along which they were ranged. Then came the telephone and its hundreds of additional wires, involving bigger and more numerous posts to carry them. The temporary interruption of the service by the Post Office fire affordelau opportunity for the aubho n’ties to take the new departure which has been alike the subject of the public’s maledictions and the butt of small wits ever since. The idea of setting up for this purpose huge balks of toiara timber along the middle of the footpaths was one that we should think could hardly have occurred to anybody in any other part of .the world. Certainly in no other place would so preposterous a disfigurement of the city and obstruction to the public convenience be submitted to so calmly. A mild protest was uttered vainly by the civic authorities aacl then, as usual, the nuisance was allowed to “ slide.” But now the very desirable and welcome reform in the city lighting—which so-called "lighting” has hitherto been simply execrable in its inadequacy —the installation of the electric light, is made the excuse for inflicting on the long-suffering citizens yet another obstruction in consequence. A whole forest of new trees has been planted along the footpaths, and the appearance presented by some of the thoroughfares—that along The Terrace, for instance —suggests tho idea that somebody must have playing off a gigantic practical joke on the citizens, in pursuance of a wager on the amount of street-disfigurement and obstruction that they would really stand. The double rows of immense totara balks, alternating with new' and slenderer electric-light posts, present so ludicrous an aspect, with the myriads of wires connecting them, that newcomers usually go into fits of laughter at the first glimpse of this eccentric spectacle. The thing would have been bad enough, so far as appearance goes, had the mighty timbers been put where they wou ! d have been in nobody’s way. But that would have spoiled the joke, The grand conception was to stick up all these obstructions right in the middle of the footpaths wherever the City Council had flagged or asphalted only half the pathways. Consequently, as only two persons can walk abreast along these pathways, even when no obstacle impedes progress, it naturally follows that whenever the.pedestrians encounter one of these electric posts —which is every few yards—they have to perform a sort of quadrille figure. One has to skip ahead while the other hops aside or astern to clear the obstacle. If two pairs of pedestrians meet they have to go through a kind of country dance, interspersed wi h waltzes and “ swears,” before they can once mere get a clear course ahead. The post, are, as we have said, placed in the middle of the narrow concrete or asphalt footpaths. They are moreover carefully disposed at the exact points where a belated citizen going home in the dark would bang himself against them. To make this quite sure divers bars and rods and knobs of iron stick out here and there, just where they wil