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summer to erect 40 arc lamps along a mile of the King's Road.
These lamps it is estimated will give five times the light now given
by the gas lamps. The loss of current in the use of the accumulators
is estimated by the engineer at about 25 p.c., but this he states is
more than saved in the coal bill. The Corporation has expended
the sum of £41,000 on Capital, but this amount includes certain
additional outlay on mains for future supply. Sanction has been
given by the Corporation to the borrowing of a further sum of
£35,000 for extending the works. The deputation was informed by
the Chairman of the Lighting Committee that the sum of £2,500
had been paid off the capital account on the first year's working,
after paying all working and management expenses and instalments
and interest on loans. The price charged is 7d. per Board of Trade
unit, with a reduction to 3½d. after the first two hours' consumption
of maximum demand per day. This installation afforded the deputation
another instance of the suitability of the low tension system for
a small and compact area, but it was evident to the members of the
Committee who inspected the Station that considerable difficulty
might arise should the Corporation be called upon to light the
extreme portions of the Borough.
Brighton.
The Brighton and Hove Electric Light Company's Central Station.
On the same day the deputation visited the central station of the above Company
in the Gloucester Road. This station is another sample of the
high tension transformer system, and is one of the oldest stations
in the Kingdom, the business having been established as early as
1881. The Company does not possess a Provisional Order, but carried
out its work by means of overhead wires which are suspended on
poles fixed to houses. Application, however, is again being made for
Parliamentary Powers by the Company to enable it to put the mains
underground, although the Corporation is offering strenuous opposition
to this application. The price charged by the Company is based
on a kind of sliding scale, by which those consumers who burn their
maximum demand of current for a full period of two hours per day