25 YEARS AGO

'THE STING', a film about a pair of confidence men in 1930s Chicago, last night walked away with all the honours in Hollywood's 46th annual Academy Awards. The picture, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, won seven Oscars in all, including those for best film and director - but it did not get any in the acting categories.

50 YEARS AGO

SIR,- I am a pensioned police constable, aged 53, and unemployed, although I sign on at the employment Exchange every Monday morning. Being a non-claimant, there never seems any hope of having a suitable job.

Since my retirement I have lost my wife and my son after a long illness and this has cost me no end of money.

I feel sure there are places where men such as I could be provided with employment, say as bank messenger, commissionaire, or in other light work. - Yours, etc., JL

125 YEARS AGO

WE congratulate the Directors of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway on being the initiators of a reform which has long been demanded in connection with the sale of railway tickets. On and after tomorrow, the offices at the principal stations on their lines - Bolton, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Rochdale, Wakefield, Blackburn, etc. - will be open continuously on week days from eight o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, 'in order that tickets may be obtained at any time and for any train' during the day. The admirable arrangement will remove one of the terrors of railway travelling, viz. the 'crush' at the booking office.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.