ELECTRICITY DANGERS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4920, 30 December 1925, Page 2

ELECTRICITY DANGERS.

WHAT TO AVOID. ADVICE OF AN EXPERT. Speaking on the dangers and necessary piecautions in the use of, electricity at a meeting of the Woolston Burgesses’ Association Mr E. Hitchcock, general manager of the Christchurch Electricity Department, said that of late some very -tragic occurrences had been reported. It might be looked on as the price which we had to pay for tlie world’s advance in civilisation. The human race wats being entrusted with more and still more and greater forces of nature. “Most pf these accidents,” said Mr Hitchcock,'“are due to carelessness. A lot of them are due to fallen wires: a salient precaution is to avoid all fallen wires,. With ranges and similar pieces' of domestic apparatus it is .best to use one hand only. If two hands are used any shock received passes right through the body. Usually main switches are fitter, which simplify matters. It should also be made a point to avoid any water pipes, gas pipes, and wet floors when handling electrical, apparatus. Thousands the world over use power, now, and with perfect safety ; but there is no sense in going on with a new thing without altering our mental processes and applying particular methods to it. The consumer has to know definitely, about the power he uses to avoid risk and use it with intelligence. The insulation in modern electrical apparatus is now iso good and .the methods used in manufacture are so refined that the gear can be used easily with just ordinary precautions.* Monkeying with the fuses, using unduly thick wire when fuses keep blowing out, is ah example of dangerous bull-headed-ness. Fuses are maee comparatively weak with a purpose, and to insert thicker and still thicker wire if the futses blow out is quite wrong.”