New Britain herald., 1919-11-22
THE OBSERVER
 MAKES RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
 ON THE CITY AND ITS PEOPLE.

They're telling 8 good story in city hall about the efforts of an amateur brick mason to break through a door between the offices of Kirkham X Cooper and the office formerly occn pied by A. w. Upson. The would-be mason, a. city employe, was secured because it was thought the job could be done cheap.
 Soon after the city employe started to batter his way through the wall bricks began to rain down into the office of the board of assessors, two floors below. A shower of brick and / mortar popped out of the fireplace onto the floor, accompanied by a cloud of sOot. An obliging assistant janitor swept up the debris and went smiling ly on his way. Within a short time he was recalled, as bricks began to rain down again and the office air was black with dust from the fireplace. An inVestiga tion was comm enced and it was discoverel that the amateur ma son had been unwittingly smashing in the chimney and had succeeded in breaking through a hole sufficiently large to accommodate a Ford. It was only after considerable argument that he was persuaded to desist, as he was beginning to like the job. It is said that the city paid a pretty penny to a, real mason for repairing the damage.
 Shipping by motor, the practica bill ity of which was thoroughly demon strated during the war. is becoming even more popular under the stress of conditions brought about by peace. The business man who thought his troubles would be ended when the enemy signed the armistice terms on the dotted line soon discovered that it is always possible for conditions to be worse than those which imm ediately confront him. Labor strikes in port cities have caused a, certain amount of inland freight sta gnation due to em- bargoes on the railroads and it has been necessary to call the gas steed into action to make the best of an em- barrassing situation.
 Shipments to New York city, where lie the ocean greyhounds, are by no means unusual and during the recent unpleasantness between employers and the longshoremen the automobile played an important part in keeping New Britain's hardware products fly ing toward the consumers.
 Moving household goods by autom O. bile has also become quite common Migrating according to modern ideas, consists of boosting the Victrola, the twin beds and other necessary house. hold furniture into a gasoline van, placing the Liberty bonds safely in the inside pocket and saying Home, James, and som eHmes this com mand means a jaunt of several hum dred miles One such trip was made last week between New Britian and Elmira, N. Y.
 For comm ercial purposes the auto truck seems to have 8 bright future. The tendency to ask exorbitant rates, which has been shown by some, not all, of the truck owners whose ma chimes can be hired for hauling freight may limit activity in this field but where sanity prevails !n esta blish- ing rates the truck will find popular place in our scheme of things.
 The attendance at the annual grid iron struggle of the New Britain aid Hartford High schools last Saturday ,ndicatas. or, should be taken as an indication. of a reaWaken1ng Of inter est in scholastic sports in this city, There is no reason why large crowds should not attend every sports event conducted under High school auspices elthouah a record crowd like last S,lt- ,1rdav,s herring could hardly be eN- pected.
 Considering the lack of public sup l port the High school athletes have l accom- niished more than might be the