March of Progress

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 56, 28 May 1927, Page 14

March of Progress

I A TINY CITY GARDEN | | WILL DISAPPEAR WHEN j STATE FIRE OFFICE BUILDS.

A SCENTED CORNER

In six months’ time a start is expected to be made with the new State Fire Office building at the corner of Court House Lane and High Street. With the coming of this big Government enterprise a charming little city garden will disappear. Auckland will have gained another imposing new building, but she will have lost some beautiful - trees. Leaning over the tall embankment at the corner, there are trees and shrubs which make a pleasant and colourful break among the piles of grey masonry. In season the perfume of the trumpet lily and the oleander floods the narrow streets near by, overpowering the more mundane smells of factories and passing motor-cars.

A flight of steps leads up from High street between the trees of the old garden, but it is years since they felt

the pressure of pattering feet. Iron gates, fortified by a chain, bar the way and drifting piles of withered autumn leaves tell a tale of neglect. With the garden will disappear the building which is at present used by the Deeds and Survey Department. Originally it was built for a Wesleyan Chapel, the first of its kind in Auckland.

The old church has been added to since it became a place of business, and where worshippers once offered up prayer hundreds of people pore over land titles every day. The rustle of parchment has replaced the whispered prayers and the melodious hymn.

"Silence is Requested!” now placards the building.

Until four or five years ago the steps through the garden were open, but it became a habit for people to use them so often that the Deeds Office became a kind of right-of-way, and so the gates were locked and chained.

The pleasant little garden did not always flourish on the corner. Its flowering trees and shrubs were planted by old men who were engaged as recorders in the Deeds and Survey Office. During their spare time they occupied themselves with beautifying the open space until it became a home of birds and bees and flowers. Peaches and loquats, oleander and trumpet lily, a cypress and a sycamore, flax and many tiny shrubs all thrive in the tiny garden on the corner. Naturally the fruit finds a ready “market” among those engaged in the Deeds Office; it is to be had for plucking when ripe. It is expected that the new State Fire Office will be an imposing building to accommodate this rapidly-grow-ing department, and perhaps other Government departments. The Auckland staff of the State Fire Office has grown during the last few years. This growth means the end of a tiny garden, but that is the way of a busy world. Flowers and trees" are not to be compared with valuable business sites.

ICE HOCKEY

GREAT CANADIAN GAME RUGBY POPULAR (.Special to THE SUN.) WANGANUI. To-day. According to a representative of the Canadian Soccer team, ice hockey is all the rage in Montreal in winter time. Admission charges, he said, ranged from 2s up to 15s, bui the sport is exhilarating beyond description. Crack hockey players can travel 190 yards in seven seconds. Climatic conditions prohibit Soccer from being played in Montreal in winter, and the round ball game is only played during the summer months.

The informant stated that Rugby received good support in Canada.

BOWL-TESTING

AUSTRALIAN METHOD In view of the conditions under which bowls are tested in Auckland the following description of table used by Mr. W. D. Hensell, official tester to the Australian Bowling Council, will be of wide interest in New Zr-a-land. The table is 36£t. long with a slate foundation, which is covered in flannelette, then by two thicknesses of rubber, approximately three-sixteenths of an inch thick, and finally by canvas. This table, it is claimed, will not track, and has been used for nine years. During that time no less than a-quarter of a million bowls have been tested on it. At the nreser.t time Mr. Hensell asserts that it is running perfectly true and as well as when it was at first constructed.