STREET LIGHTING.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 1 August 1936, Page 4

STREET LIGHTING.

The new system of street lighting in the Masterton borough is being favourably commented upon by citizens, and it is hoped that it will be extended until the whole borough is adequately supplied. Street lighting is comparatively a newcomer among municipal services. Ancient Rome had fidi® streets, paved footpaths, splendid public baths, a water system that approached perfection, and hie and police departments, but no lighting. Burglaries were common in the Rome of those days so common that the unfortunate janitor was often fastened by a chain outside the front door of the robbed house. In the towns of the Middle Ages—when there was no paving, no street cleaning, no water supply, and when dead animals rotted in the streetspublic lighting was unknown. The earliest form of organised street lighting in England took the shape of town by-laws that required each citizen to carry a light with him at night. By the sixteenth century in England this had changed to a lantern over the door of each house, the householder of which paid taxes. Modern streetlighting commenced m 1806, when gas was used for a street lamp m King Street, Manchester, England. Since then we have made great strides in street lighting, and Masterton itself will become quite up-to-date when the new system is brought into operation in Queen Street.