REMARKABLE MAN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 415, 27 December 1932, Page 2

REMARKABLE MAN

SYDNEY'S MAYOR EXTREMELY MODERN IDEAS DESPITE HJS 77 YEARS "KEEP AEREAST OF THE TIMES" Sydney's new Lord Mayor, 77-year-old Alderman R. C. Hagon, is a remarkable man. He has one hobby — keeping young. It isn't a sideline such as fishing or nowing a lawn; it is a full time job, with the septuagenarian Loi'd Mayor. On the philosophy that he easts the same shadow as he did wh'en he was 21, Alderman Hagon says he grows -younger as he grows older. Sometimes he wonders what it is like to be an old man. • At 77 he does only that which will prevent his mind from straying into old-fashioned avenue^ of thought. - See him when he steps lightly into the council chamber; the Beau Brummel of the Tovm Hall — sartorially perfect. He has a suit for every day of the week, with the jacket waist tight, and the waistcoat with' lapels on it. "Keep young," he says, "keep young." Forceful Ideas And there is the same punch in his ideas for civic reform. The new Lord Mayor does not say, "Don't do ( that; you are destroying an old landmark which reminds us of our younger i day-s." j No this "young fellow" Alderman' J Hagon, says: "Knock these buildings I down and lets have wider streets." j To Alderman Hagon there is time { and place for sentiment, but not at i the Town Hall. It was he who sponsored the Martin-place-Maequarle-street extension, who had a hand in the widening of William-street, and who used his influence to hlot out many unsightly places in the metropolis. "Keep abreast of the times," is the I 77-year-old Lord Mayor's motto. i He confessed that the retiring Lord : Mayor (Alderman Walder), in the ' discharge of his multifarious duties as Lord Mayor, had "set the pace." j "As for me, well, I'll have to go some to keep up with him, but I'll be there," said Alderman Hagon.