The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-11-03
NUMBERING HOUSES FROM 1912 ID 1872. This is Tooth Anniversary of
 the System IT BEGAN IN PARIS Yokohama Still Numbers Houses As They Are Built, and Number Five Hundred May Be Next
 to Number One
IT BEGAN IN PARIS

The present year is the 400th anniver- sary of the numbering of houses-a sys- tenn of identification which was not in- trodueed in London, however. until the latter part of the 18th century.
 It was In the year 1512 that the idea struck an architect to have numbers painted on the houses in a certain quarter of Paris, but the idea took long time to take root, and 1t was not until 17S9 that the system became general. In Berlin, about 10 years later, an eccentric method of numbering the houses was adopted | They numbered them without any ref erence to the streets; thus a tenants ad- dress would be described merely as, say, TOGO. Berlin"
 This stfange system survives to the present day Tn some parts of the east-in | Yokohama, for instance, where new house Is given the next number to that of the house last built, through 1t may be in an entirely different part of the town. Thus, No. and No zoo may be side by side. and the only way to find house Is to drive in rlckshaw. The rickshaw men are infallible.
 In St. Petersburg they have an excel lent way of displaying the number of houses by little lanterns, bearing the num- bers on the glass, so that one is saved from the necessity of wandering up and down the street after dark, as so often | happens in London, in vain attempt to discover a particular house.
 In Stuart Times
 The numbering of houses in London, as | above shown, is of comparatively recent | date, and a backward glance into the his- | tory of the metropolis shows that the con venience of the method has been gained at the sacrifice of picturesque element in our streets. In the later Stuart times, | says Macaulay, the houses were not mum bered, and there would, indeed, have been little advantage in numbering them, | for of the coachmen, chairmen, porters and errand boys of London a very small proportion could read. It was necessary | to use marks which the most ignorant | could understand. The shops were, there fore, distinguished by painted or sculp- tured signs which gave 8 very gay and grotesque aspect to the streets" | Similar measures were adopted for iden- tiflcation of private houses. In Lincolns Inn Fields for example, 1t seems to have been usual for the houses to be distin- gushed by ornamentation on the gate posts. We find, for instance, reference to the "Pineapples,' at a house where the ornamentation consisted of this fruit cut in stone. At night time other direc- | tions were necessary, such as over against the New Exchange in Bedford street at the sign of the Peacock, where | you shall see at night two candles burn ing within one of the chambers before the balcony and lantern with candle | in it upon the balcony"
 These descriptions referred to houses in lcomparatively well defined spots, and the T-- 4f.,~- 4ls. act was considerable. as during the first part | of the 18th century the names of many | of the less important streets and places 1 were continually changing. to correspond with the change of ownership or of the signs that hung in the streets. An act was passed in 1762 to compel the residents to do away with hanging signs, which had become a dangerous obstruction and fix them to the walls of their houses. The act, however, did not include the num- bering of houses which provision was se- cured three years later in George III, cap. 26.
 First London Street
 The first instance known of a London street in which the houses were num- l bered is Prescott street. Goodmans | Fields, but the practice did not spread far before the year 1764, when it received a 1 great impetus, and it soon afterwards became well established in London. Many of the oldest streets, especially in the city and West End, still retain, substaI tally, the numbers then applied to them, and it seems that the system then adopted was l always the consecutive, as opposed to the
 odd and even' numbering.
 l In the Metropolis Local Management act l of 1855, which established the Metropol- itan Board of Works. clause was in- serted bestowing comprehensive powers 1 on the board in regard to the numbering | of houses. Subsequently the board uIi- 1 dertook tho task of simplifying the list of street names. and numbers were ap l piled on the odd and even" system, which has been observed substantially | ever since. It not only saves the postman 1 countless Journeys across the road, but enables particular numbers to he more quickly identified. The London County council succeeded the Metropolitan | Board of Works in 1Sss, and since that l date about 15o0 streets which bore the 1 same name have been renamed and 35oo l'subsidiary names have been abolished
 The Numbering Principle I It is probably not generally known that the council, for the last ten years, have adopted the principle, when numbering a new main road. of starting at the nearest 1 end to St. Pauls cathedral, with the odd 1 numbers on the left hand side and the l even numbers on the right. Tn the case of the by-roads, the numbering is started from the junction with the main road, and other cases are determined by local circumstances and convenience
 + It may be interesting to add that there is still a strong objection on the part of many householders to occupy a house
 numbered "l3." The council have often been requested to allow another number to be substituted, and in one instance the proprietors of nursing home urged hat if the number were not altered many su- persttious patients would be afraid to go to the home and the business would
 suffer.
 The inconvenience of the old method of
 consecutive numbering is seen In such thoroughfares as the Strand in which a
 low number on one side of the road faces q high number on the opposite side and another eccentricity which one may hope to see abolished Is the placing of the
 number of a corner house round in the next street, practice which often proves; a stumbling block to tho stranger and unwary.