THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, MAY 2, 1882. NUMBERING THE STREETS.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2516, 2 May 1882, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, MAY 2, 1882. NUMBERING THE STREETS.

It is satisfactory to see that the question of numbering the houses in Christchurch is before the City Council. The inconvenience of the present want of system, is very evident, and it is wonderful that the inhabitants have endured it so long. At present, even after the place where a person lives has been minutely described, it is often extremely difficult to find his residence. The houses are frequently so much alike, and the various sections of the streets have so little to distinguish the one Jfrom the other, that the most skilful dweller in this most puzzling city is now and then driven to distraction in his frantic efforts to find out the desired haven. And, if this is the case with inhabitants, what must it be with regard to strangers. “Oh, that mine enemy were a stranger in Christchurch looking for the home of an acquaintance !” might very well be the exclamation of a thoroughly vindictive man. No person could possibly wish for his adversary a much more undesirable fate.

Everyone acknowledges all this, but' there is a sort of idea that the difficulties in the way of numbering the houses is insurmountable. The City Council has tried to do the business once and has failed. “ When the proper time arrives,’ 5 as Councillor Lambert sagely remarks, the Council will have another try ! To the minds of some councillors the problem is one only second to that of squaring the circle. At all events it is rather more complicated than digging the Panama Canal. But when will the “proper time” arrive. When the present generation have been harrassed into their graves by the process of househunting ? Or when the streets inside the belt are lined with continuous rows of houses ? The first of these two periods would probably arrive a considerable time before the second, but even that data would be long to wait for. It certainly seems to us that the “ proper time’ 5 is the present one. Christchurch is in a sufficiently advanced state to have its houses numbered. At least it would not be pleasant to confess to a visitor that we are in such a rudimentary state that such a simple process is altogether beyond us. If the thing has to be done, moreover, it should certainly be carried out by, orunder the supervision of, the City Council. If many of the residents are willing to pay for the numbering, as Mr. Tait says they are, so much the better, but the plan should be a general and comprehensive one, and adapted to circumstances, that is, to the rapid growth of the city. Now, Mr. Tait 5 a proposal hardly seems to meet these requirements. His plan we believe to be much as follows:—He is to commence from a certain point to be fixed on by theOouncil, and from thence to number straight away up or down the street, putting the odd numbers on one side and the even on the other. When a vacant space of 33 feet is met with, its number is to be reserved, so that, for instance, if there was an eighth of an acre vacant between two houses, the numbers of there two houses would be, say, 15 and 17, leaving 16 for the new house when put up. Now in numbering it is above everything desirable that numbers numerically contiguous should be near each other in the houses. A person should know at once where say, Hereford street No. 21 was. It should be close, or opposite to No. 22, and should be in a certain part of the town. In Christchurch, however, the room taken up by private houses is very varied. On one side of a street there may be houses on acre sections, while on the other side of it the houses may be on sections of an eighth of an acre. It is not like it is in equally large towns confined within smaller limits, where houses on the average cover nearly the same extent of ground. Mr. Tait’s plan would, therefore, as matters at present stand, result in this. Either tho numbers would get very much astray, g.g., No. 21 on one side of a street would be very far from No. 22 on the other, or the largo houses would monopolise four or five numbers to balance accounts. And in any case No. 21 in one street would not be in the same part of the street as No. 21 in a parallel street. For instance, it would most probably be found impossible to have No. 21 in Hereford street the same distance from Colombo street as would be No. 21 in Cashel street. The numbering of the sections—either in quarter-acre sections or in eighth of an acre sections —numbering right through the street and making the house take the number or numbers of the section or sections on which it is built, is one way out of this difficulty. It would make all like numbers bo in the same part of parallel streets, but on the other hand it would possess the objectionable feature of giving, in very many instances, to houses three or four numbers. Lettering the frontages on every street is another method that might do well. Hereford B, for instance, would then represent a certain frontage—most probably a block frontage—and tho numbering in that frontage would be easily managed, and might be inexpensively altered or adapted when a new house was put up. But the ingenuity of Councillors will surely find some method by which tho inhabitants may be put out of their present misery in regard to house hunting. The most convenient and desirable time to have the thing done is the present time, and we trust the problem will be solved when once the by-law committee has grappled with it in earnest.

A COOL REQUEST.

The Mastodon Minstrels will certainly lose nothing for want of asking. Their request to be allowed to erect a temporary balcony for their band over the footpath in Gloucester street in front of ihe Theatre was decidedly a cool one. and wa are glad to see that it was refused by the Council. The numbers lately attracted by the circus band were nuisance enough, and it is difficult to see what good purpose was answered by having such openair concerts in a street that is crowded enough without them. At the best of times that part of Gloucester street is not a pleasant one for ladies to pass through after 7.30 p.m., but with a band braying in mid air and an attendant throng of listeners, it b comes almost tabooed to them. The Mastodon Minstrels take their name from an extinct pachyderm with a skin thicker than that of an elephant, and with sim« pier grinding tooth as befitted an animal of more carnivorous nature than its modem representative. Metaphorically speaking, the Minstrels act up to their

prototype. They are by no means thin skinned, and, they appear to be tolerably omnivorous in their requests. We wish them all luck and success, hut would rather see them, together with their band, inside the theatre than outside, performing on a balcony sub Jove frigido.