AN URGENT CASE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 208, 16 July 1878, Page 3

AN URGENT CASE.

To the Editor of the Akaroa Mail.

Sib, —Aβ one of the public, forced in the prosecution of my daily calling to wander here and there over the Peninsula hills, I may not be deemed a transgressor in pleading the cause of my brethren, as of myself, in the remotest corner of the county. My case is * simple, but an urgent one ; and it ia patent to other wanderers as well as to myself. It ia simply th« case of an almost impossible road, lately cut through the bush, and leading from the Little River flat to the Purau track. The local Board did a good public service, simple as it may appear, when they opened away at all from the flat to the Summit road ; and I presume that its almost insurmountable gradient, in one or two places, is not their fault, but is chargeable upon someone else, either upon him who mapped it out, if it be on & public line, or on him who cut it, if it be not, while the rough surface is but natural.

I say that a good public service was done when the road, bad as it is, was thus opened up ; for the Summit can now be attained, and the journey prosecuted, reaching Purau in better than three hours, and Port Levy in less. And this, whether it be to a swagger on foot, to a cattle dealer on business, to a constable on duty, to & preacher, trying to keep appointed time, or to one hurrying to and from Christchurch by the quickest way, is no little matter.

But. besides, I believe that this road is the only access to some freehold property rated by the Board, and now being cleared by the owner. I pity the poor men who have to toil up to thia property by this road, and hope that woman or child may never have to attempt it. Has the owner of this property not some claim upon the consideration of the Board besides what he has in common with the travelling public ? ' I do not presume to instruct, but beg to solicit the Board's attention to this road ; and hope that, as far as in them lies, they will complete the boon they have already conferred upon the public in opening up this track. There may be difficulties in their way to the final completion of a road there just now; but if they would in the meantime expend,"say £10 in zig-zagging the present track in a few places, and in rolling off come of the larger atones, it would be a blessing to both man and beast who must travel it, good or bad. . I would only add that a few simple finger posts, pointing the way from the Summit road to thia track, would perhaps save unwary strangers from the unpleasant consequences of ignorance, or of the not unusual hill-top fogs.—Yours, &c, WANDERER. July 12,1878.