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lamps are now kept alight 3,940 hours per annum
instead of 4,300 as formerly, and the light in tho metered
lamps is reduced to a consumption of 5ft. of gas per hour at
midnight, instead of the full light being continued the whole
night. The economy in gas arising from this re-arrangement
represents nearly £250 per annum, against which is to bo set
off the wages of the lamplighter employed by the Vestry to
attend to the refuge lamps (rendered necessary by the new
arrangement), amounting to £65, leaving a nett saving of
about £185 a year. This saving is, however, more than
absorbed by tho cost of the additional lamps already
referred to.
A resolution to adopt the average meter system for tho
ordinary street lamps (i.e., to affix a meter to every twentieth
lamp, and calculate tho consumption of gas in all the street
lamps, whether metered or not, upon the average of such
meters) was passed on tho 15th July, but the operation thereof
was suspended for twelve months, in order that the modification
of hours under arrangement with the Company might
bo put to a practical test.
Early in the year tenders were invited for new lanterns for
tho lamp-posts in Regent Street, and tho tender of Messrs.
Verity Brothers, of 137, Regent Street, to supply and fix
about eighty 16in. lanterns, of copper frame and with opal top,
at 37s. each, was accepted. The size of tho flame in tho
Regent Street lamps was largely increased early in 1886, and
the substitution of new lanterns for the old heavy lanterns
has further considerably improved tho lighting of the street.
Advantage has been taken of tho fixing of new lanterns to
insert the names of streets in the lamps at street comers.
Now lanterns, or burners of a larger size, have been fixed
in Arundell Street, Cleveland Row, Walker's Court, Pall Mall
(east end), Lexington Street, Little Crown Court, Waterloo