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Otago Daily Times, Issue 20875, 15 November 1929, Page 18

The ancient smithy in Station Road, Harrow, which has existed on that site for over 300 years, is yielding to the pressure of shop extension, and is to be removed to another site. It has always been an object of interest, and once was almost surrounded by poplar trees, Previous to the present owners it had been in the hands of generations of a blacksmith family known for their great strength, one of whom used to crack nuts between thumb and finger. Tradition states that, in 1646, when Charles I fled from Oxford, his horse cast a shoe near the smithy, and that he waited while a new shoe was procured. Further up the hill a tablet records the fact that the fugitive rested there and took his last look on London, until brought back a prisoner. “ Here is the evidence,” said the chief engineer of the Southland Electric Power Board (Mr L. 8.. Hutton) at the meeting of the board the other morning. Opening a cardboard box he produced a charred, rusted, and twisted piece of iron. “ What can you expect when an installation is allowed to get into this condition? ” he asked. The “evidence,” it was explained, was the heating base of an electric range, from which a subscriber complained she could not get proper service. Board members agreed that in this case the failure of the range to work was scarcely a reasonable argument for non-payment of the account, and it was agreed to press for payment. Washable outer clothing for men and the open neck were dress reforms urged by Professor Leonard Hill, Director of the Department of Applied Physiology of the National Institute for Medical "Research, in his presidential address recently at the Sanitary Inspectors’ As-' sociation Conference at Lowestoft,