[119] Siemens’ light at Blackburn cost 2s. per hour per lamp of 6000 candle power.
[120] Vide ‘Proceedings of the Association of Municipal and Sanitary Engineers and Surveyors,’ vol. viii. p. 171, &c.
[121] On this point Mr. W. G. Laws, Borough Engineer, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, says: “Taking as an example a street a mile long, lighted by the arc system, the arrangement would probably be lamps 60 yards apart, placed alternately on either side, giving 30 lamps or 60,000 candles at a cost of about 800l. per annum. If lighted by ‘incandescent lamps’ we should have them placed about 30 yards apart on both sides: that is, 120 lamps giving 2400 candles at a cost of about 420l. per annum. The number of gas lamps for the same distance might be 150, giving about 2250 candles at a cost of 300l. per annum.” (‘Proceedings of the Association of Municipal and Sanitary Engineers and Surveyors,’ vol. viii. p. 65.)
CHAPTER XIV.
STREET NAMING AND NUMBERING.
It was not until the commencement of the present century that inconvenience was apparently felt from the want of any distinguishing names of streets, or numbers to houses, either in London or provincial towns; the first Act of Parliament on the subject being one passed in the year 1819, which gave powers to vestries and district boards to put up the names of streets, and even then for some considerable period afterwards houses or premises were not marked with numbers, but with distinguishing trade signs or names.
The Towns Improvement Clauses Act 1847, however, contains the following clauses which are incorporated with the Public Health Act 1875, by the 160th section of that act:
“The commissioners shall from time to time cause the houses and buildings in all or any of the streets[122] to be marked with numbers as they think fit, and shall cause to be put up or painted on a conspicuous part of some house, building or place at or near each end, corner, or entrance of every such street the name by which such street is to be known; and every person who destroys, pulls down, or defaces any such number or name, or puts up any number or name different from the number or name put up by the commissioners, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding 40s. for every such offence” (10 & 11 Vic. c. 34, sec. 64).
“The occupiers of houses and other buildings in the streets shall mark their houses with such numbers as the commissioners approve of, and shall renew such numbers as often as they become obliterated, or defaced; and every such occupier who fails within one week after notice for that purpose from the commissioners to mark his house with a number approved of by the commissioners, or to renew such number when obliterated, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding 40s.; and the commissioners shall cause such numbers to be marked or to be renewed as the case may require, and the expense thereof shall be repaid to them by such occupier, and shall be recoverable as damages” (10 & 11 Vic. c. 34, s. 65).
Some difference even now exists as to the manner in which streets are named, there being considerable diversity in the sizes, colours, and materials of the name plates, as well as in the spaces allowed for the letters. The following list is given to show how this diversity existed in the metropolis even so late as the year 1870.