THE POST-OFFICE CLOCK AND TOWER.

Waikato Independent, Volume V, Issue 325, 17 January 1907, Page 4

THE POST-OFFICE CLOCK AND TOWER.

(TO THE EDITOR.) Sir, —The frank and exhaustive statement of the Acting-Mayor (Mr E. J. Wilkinson), in your issue of yesterday, should, I think, remove hesitation in sup- * porting the above project. True, just % now Christmas and New Year bills have been or are to be met. Borough rates will be increased. The connection and installing of gas will be a serious item of expense. Yet in view of these liabilities, you have the almost phenomenal unanimity of the Borough Council in its favour, and the example of Carterton " jumping at it " ! Yet Cambridge can less afford to neglect anything that may produce an agreeable impression, and make it more prepossessing. Its public sanatoria although a great hygienic advantage, are certainly no attraction, * and do not promote vivacity. In a word, as I was told on my recent visit to Auckland it is " a little dull." Now, Sir, deny it who can, a handsome tower, the clean, cheery unchanging face of a city clock withmelodious chimes would be pleasant to the eye and good for the ear. They would lesson the depression of those "deadly dull" days that tradesmen and women endure so bravely and so silently. It is one of Young's " Night Thoughts." "We take no count of time but by its loss." But Cambridge has no public warning voice of the loss. Not a few tell the time o'day by the punctual arrival and departure of the railway trains and by the regular passing to and fro of those who know to a minute when the dinner gong strikes and when the tea-bell rings. There may be then an industrial value in a public authoritative time-keeper; there may also be a moral value; its every stroke is a warning voice that another hour has for ever gone, and that its record of thoughts and words and deeds is registered in the Eternal Memory. But do not those musical chimes'surround this warning with a song of joy and hope, awakening happy reminiscences, and thanksgiving in many a suffering and sorrowing heart. This is " sentiment," I admit, but it is of such plastic spiritual material as this that the living cell of our inmost life consists. I further, however, admit that' this " sentiment " does not solve the financial problem I But indeed that is only the Quaker's problem that comes upon us daily, " Friend I feel so much " (putting down his " bobs ") " how much dost thou feel" ? Yet I will suggest how this bare ungentle appeal may be made an innocent joy. I propose that the 5000 Club, or a Committee of young men and maidens prepare and proclaim a Grand Cambridge Carnival, with touraments of inailed and mounted knights before Queen and Eoyal Court assembled, and sports, and competitions in song and speech, with orchestra and band, with mounted stage and dramatic performance, closing with the brighest, most picturesque fancy dress ball the Waikato has ever seen. If this suggestion be taken up, and honestly and earnestly and skillfully carried out, the money-bugbear that now hovers around the project of a tower and clock, would, like Marley's Ghost, be no more seen.—l am, etc., Edwin Cox. Cambridge, January 16th, 1907.