It may be taken as a sign of the times that ten miles of street in an outlying district of London have been provided with municipal electricity. There is no reason why the scheme which has been perfected in Poplar should not elsewhere be put into operation. The design of the company which has provided the new light is to bring it into the houses of all even the humblest. As it is stated, applications have already been received from private persons in the Poplar region for over five thousand lamps of eight-candle power each, while, further, installations are to be made in private dwellings free of charge, and meters, with slots for money, furnished, so that, as the chairman of the company said upon the occasion when the new illuminant was first placed on tap, customers in this way could pay as they went along, and there was the brilliant hope that the whole locality would before long become one blaze of electricity. The idea is sound. Better still, it is practical. And, last of all, it will be popular not only in Poplar, but wherever else it may be tried.
The Irish Times, October 10th, 1900.
