SYDNEY STREETS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17612, 30 October 1931, Page 2

SYDNEY STREETS

LIKE PADDY'S; MARKET PAVEMENT MERCHANTS' Sydney’s main streets nowadays—and this applies especially to narrow, crowded Pitt street—aro strongly suggestive of this 'city’s famous Paddy s Market. It wants only the Oriental flavor* of-that establishment and a few bird dealers apd old clothes merchants tu complete thb picture. f In its long history, Sydney hus novet before witnessed so ,/ many bavrowmen ir its main arteries of human and vehicle traffic. This competition with the shops is unfortunate for the regular traders who are paying big rents, but v.-itb 1 that view one-' feels, a certain amount of sympathy for-those who have, been forced iby, economic stress to. crowd the city with barrows. They have to live, and Abey , are- trying to live honestly: A-glance is enough to show that many- of these, barrowmeiv are-not the typical pavement fruit merchants, and that many of them. have seen better times. , Before the depression the barrowpieu confined their trade to fruit. Now they have gone into: the vegetable business also. Some also sell flowers as a further means of picking up a few shillings.- Many of them are also trading at; night, where, formerly, they closed down each evening at the close of the homeward rush. Pitt street in ,the neighborhood of the theatres and movie shows', is now a, succession of barrow,men; at - night and,.of other., poor devils providing a-.’ musical- melange for cliaritable, passers-by—flautists, violiniuts/ antV others: The -traffic; problem is accentuated by the fact that many of thb barrows now occupy stationary positions day., and, nightj, and that/ early_jn the morning, during thb' rush' hours; boxes of fruit and vegetables are- unpacked on the footpath's. The traffic and i other authori-ties-lire, apparently; .taking: a.- lenient view of this congestion of traffic because of the hard-, times.—Wellington Post, Correspondent.