CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT
SIR,—A cathedral clock has just announced in stentorian tones that it is 4.0 a.m. At one, two and-three o'clock it has reminded me that whilst time flies it can equally hang heavily if sleep is denied one. I ask you: Why are ecclesiastical and other public clocks allowed to disturb the silence of the night which, in general terms, is respected by man, beast and bird life? Even the B.B.C., which I am sometimes compelled to listen to via the loud-speaker next door, has the decency to close down at midnight. For what purpose do public clocks chime all night—or for that matter at all? Local residents schooled to their regular announcements are immunised to their disturbing influence, but we itinerants before we have got attuned to one clock are faced with some entirely different note. In one town the cathedral clock is not content with announcing the hour, but in full chime proclaims the quarters and the half-hour, &rid what a particularly malevolent boom its major bell has in the stillness of the night! Is there any law by which we can restrain the owners of public clocks? Or must we pray for the questionable blessing of deafness? Sir, time is now flying. It is a race against time. Ere the clock strikes five may I be dead . . . asleep.
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