OLD-FASHIONED XMAS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 61

OLD-FASHIONED XMAS.

Some of us are wont to sigh for a "good old-fashioned Christmas—plenty of , snow and a good, hard frost, you know," but it is safe to assert that did we stay to count the cost we should be content with our own sunshine Christmas. Take the railways, for instance. A quarter of a million daily is not by any means over-estimating the loss to the railway companies of the United Kingdom occasioned by a really heavy snowstorm; and, then, think of the number of extra men who have to bo kept away from their hearths for extra duty. A rainy day costs the various London authorities something like £SOOO for clearing up, whilst a snowstorm carries the bill to nearly twice that amount. Delay in street traffic must be enormous, and a modest estimate puts the loss to trade, on that score at about £60,000. In short, it is not by any means exaggerating the state of affairs if we say that a spell of real old-fashioned Christmas weather costs Britain £5,000,000 in delays and waste of energy.