SANDY'S CORNER

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 October 1948, Page 4

SANDY'S CORNER

TOO BAD. “Women of India suffer many hardhips,” reads a newspaper headline. Probably they had been sitting down doing the washing. Time they were westernised and realised that the job can be done better standing up. CUTE WAY OF CUTTING CLEAR. A unique type of double suicide has been committed in the land of Uncle Sam. A young chap and his sweetie wrapped themselves round and round with wire, then took a long lead of wire off the main coil. To this the chap, being the strongest, attached a piece of rock. This he threw over a high tension wire. Our comment: Before you attempt that sort of thing in the Socialist Isles, wait until Mr. Semple’s new book is published: “How we fought and harnessed the Waikato!” THE GOOSE AND THE COW. This heading is not the name of one of those “ye olde English hostelpries'’ but. reflects a sad state of affairs in that important, placfc on the North Island Main Trunk Line—“Ye Whistling Marton Junction.” There is a cow that strays (most cows do), and cats vegetables (again, most cows do), and a goose! Ah, yes—there is a goose! It bites people. Wc suggest that the time is ripe for the goose to be bitten. We have heard of geese being bitten at Christmas, and while we hate to put suggestions into —oh, well, never mind, we suppose we ll get along somehow at Christmas! Wc feel we certainly would if we were in “Ye Whistling Marton Junction.” BIG BEN. Dear “Sandy,”—Re the enquiry by “Waterloo” as to height of Westminster clock tower —here are a lew particulars which may interest him. Althoit:;h the tower is 320 ft. high the clock dials are only ISOlt. from ground level- The dials of the clock are 2411. in diameter, and the hands are I4fl. and 9ft., respectively. The frame of the actual clock is 15ft. long and 4ft. 6in. wide. The pendulum is 13ft. long and weighs 7501b5. The largest bell, the one on which the hours are strucK, weighs 13i tons and the hammer 7001 b. The inscription on the clock reads as follows: ’This clock was made in the year of our Lord, 1859, by Frederick Dent, clockmaker to the Queen, Royal Exchange, and to the design of Sir Edmund Beckett.” The first hour bell cracked after three weeks’ use and a second bell was cast, which also cracked, but instead of being renewed, it was turned round so that the 7001 b. hammer

would operate on a new part of the bell, and although cracked, it has been satisfactory ever since. Frederick Dent actually completed the clock in 1854, but did not live to see his work erected In the tower.

Sir Edmund Beckett, afterwards Lord Grimthorpe, was an eminent law \er and the clock he designed has lived up to all expectations, being the best public timekeeper In the world. “Big Ben” js the name of the hour bell, the clock being known as "The Great Westminster Clock.”—Tloxloge.”