MR ELL AND THE SUMMIT ROAD.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19179, 9 December 1927, Page 11

MR ELL AND THE SUMMIT ROAD.

TO THE FDITOB OF THE PRESS. Sir,—Mi- Ell may well leave posterity to judgo of the abiding worth of his work. But are the general public of to-day so unapprociative as to be unwilling to help such a deserving lame dog over the stile Y Personally* lam unable to do more than drop a small contribution—usually the minimum penny, sometimes, i'f flush of cash, a half-crown—into the box at tho entry of the Takahe, shake hands with my worthy friend, and wish him good cheer. But there is a growing volume of traffic over the Dyer's Pass and Summit roads by a class of people who can afford to contribute a £lO note where I can only part with a modest half-crown out of my scanty store. The matter wants to be "taken up by a big body of Christchurch public men. So far it has been left to half-a-dozen public-spirited citizens to put their hands in their pockets and form a body of trustees—plenty of responsibility and much criticism, the fate of most small committees.

1 am glad to see that Mr Ell names Mr George Gould as one of his supporters in the past, for I trust ho has not. lost sight of the many advantages of Cracroft Hill as a sito for the War Memorial of Canterbury, in which he and so many of us are vitally interested. The Square seems likely to continue, and be further developed, as the centre of the tramways, with a surrounding of hotels and picture palaces, and the Square has always been looked on as the only eligible sito for the memorial in tho City. On Cracroft Hill a simple, obelisk of grey granite or other durable stone of light colour, and of modest height, would be visible over a large area of tho Canterbury Plain.

No for a memorial to H. G. Ell ; not even the "Si monumontum quaeris cirnnnspice." Ho may rest content with Horace's estimsito of the ultimate fate of his verse. "Exegi moiiumentuiu aero pcrennius" (I have erected to myself a monument of a more lasting nature than one of brass). —Yours, etc., M.A. December Sth.