CORRESPONDENCE.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 259, 15 September 1874, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE.

[We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents.]

THE COUNCIL AND CONSISTENCY. To the Editor of the Cromwell Argus.

Sir, —The Cromwell Town Council is a highly respectable body, and will compare favourably with similar bodies officiating in much more highly aristocratic townships than Cromwell makes the slightest pretensions to be ; but it is guilty of the strangest inconsistencies occasionally. Probably all respectable bodies are taken with fits of this kind now and again ; indeed, the more respectable, the more inconsistently they act: they do it apparently under cover of their respectability. The members of that august body will not be insulted therefore, I hope, seeing that their high calling is admitted, if it be hmted that they are not going far enough in some things. In one or two matters which I propose to notice, it may be said that the Council have shown a vacillation which is truly amazing. They seem to think, in debating their various municipal questions, that the conduct of local business should be made to resemble as much as possible the game of battledore and shuttlecock. The game goes one way the one year, only to be completely reversed the next. It is to be sincerely hoped they will amend their ways in that respect, and for that purpose may 1 make so bold as to offer the following considerations. First then, Sir, I would allude to the notorious Block IX. question. What is really meant to be done by the Council in this matter, supposing they are successful in disposing of this grievance by getting the land divided into sections and sold or leased, and the street narrowed to a uniform width of fifty-seven feet ? Will they be prepared, to borrow one of Cr Grant's flowing sentences when speaking of another matter, " to act consistently, and to deal with the whole question of" narrowing the streets ? Will they take into consideration the propriety, for instance, of narrowing Innis-street by some seven or ten feet, aud thereby save one of the freeholders in that quarter from suffering a hardship ? Really they should. Murray-street will next claim their benevolent consideration, —although in the case of it a couple of feet will be enough to cut off it; unless, of course, it is found desirable to encourage some of the freeholders there to improve their premises by offering them a few feet more in front of their present holdings. The advantage of doing this will be easily seen when one reflects that permanent stone walls, for instance, could thus be erectetf

without the expense being gone to of first taking thie present ones down. Two feet, at any rate, must come off the surveyed width. As for Sligb-street, there can surely be no hesitation in the mind of any Councillor on that subject. It was intended by nature to be nine feet narrower than the surveyor made it, especially on one side, as Pompey or some other heathen poet says. If any doubt should arise in a Councillor's breast as to the propriety of narrowing it, he has only to reflect that the Athenceum and the school are situated in that street. What do schoolchildren and the book-reading crowd want with wide streets ? Is Paternoster-Row a wide street 1 he may triumphantly ask. Or is Oxford troubled with chain-wide thoroughfares ? Certainly not. The places where literary people most do congregate:are dingy, narrow al'evs, where the sky is to be seen only from garret-windows. Why should colonial people set themselves up for being better than their relations in the glorious old country ? When Erris-street comes to be considered, it will, I fully believe, be unanimously agreed that there is very little use for it at all. At a very slight expense of fencing, it could be turned into an excellent Pound, when the commonage is obtained. I might go on, Sir, enumerating all the streets in succession, and describing how they might advantageously be narrowed, but your space would fail. It will be sufficient to say that in my opinion the Council will of course at once take steps to see that encroachments on the streets on the flat by Messrs Brown, Robertson, Drake, and others, are at once legalised, and an assurance given to these folk that no hai ra will come to them. Possibly a way may be found to grant even Mr Scott's (William, not James) rather unreasonable request to plant trees on the street line. By steadily and consistently pur suing a course of this kind, Sir, the most astonishing results will follow. A large population will settle in our midst, and the town will flourish like a green bay tree. Stimulated by our example, the Corporations of towns groaning under the infliction of wide streets, such as Melbourne, Dublin, New York, and other small places, will speedily see their way to find a remedy. By narrowing Sackville-street to a " uniform width of 57 feet," Dublin, especially, has a chance of forming the " finest promenade in Europe."

Sir, there are one or two other matters upon which I might counsel the members of the Corporation to act consistently, but in the meantime I forbear. I may take an opportunity shortly to commend the manner in which they have lately improved the sanitary condition of the town, and the commendable zeal they have lately shown in the matter of the water supply. In the meantime, 1 am, &c, Nobody.

THE HOSPITAL TENDERS. To the Editor of the Cromwell Argus.

Sir,—As the public has been very liberally treated through the Press with reflections upon the conduct of the Hospital Committee, in the acceptance of Mr Taylor's tender for the Hospital building as against the lower offer of Mr Grant, and as those articles have all insinuated a probability of a large number of subscriptions being refused in consequence, I ask. your kind permission to state the facts of the matter, and disabuse the public miud of the attempts made to prejudice it. I may here state that the suggestions of withholding subscriptions are very ungenerous, and are unworthy of anyone desirous of establishing the institution ; and it affords me much pleasure to be unable to record a single instance in which a promised subscription has been refused. I believe it is unnecessary for me to make allusion to the animus which characterises a portion of the correspondence on the subject in the local journals,—emanating beyond doubt from the same pen which exhibited on another local matter such unmistakable evidence of vindictiveness and bad taste. The Committee felt some considerable hesitation in dealing with the two tenders, and they wisely recollected that the cheaper article is not always necessarily the better one : the character of the work likely to be done by each tenderer was of far greater importance than the difference in'the price. It would be an easy matter in £1125 worth of work to save or lose £lO, notwithstanding the inspection and ultimate grant of certificate by the architect. The work lately done by each tenderer was carefully discussed by the Committee, and I say it was unanimously decided that the subscribers would get better value from Mr Taylor. That Mr Taylor's very liberal contributions to the assistance of distress in its various forms might possibly have had some weight in deciding the vote, I willingly concede, although the matter was not even alluded to by the Committee. I think Mr Grant might have been successful but. for an accident to one of his late works ; and although possibly beyond his control, it told against him by the Committee, who did not profess to give an opinion upon whose fault the accident referred to rested. I say this trifling matter told against Mr Grant, in contradistinction to the favourable comments upon the manner in which Mr Taylor has completed a recent work. The allusion as to Good Templarism influencing the Committee is simply contemptible, and callß for no remarks from me. I trust that the public will, on the whole, acknowledge that the Committee exercised care and discretion in the matter. That they were actuated only by one feeling, the judicious expenditure of the subscribers' money, no impartial person can doubt; and with the continued assistance of the public, they will shortly be able to hand over to the new Committee an institution which will be a source of pride to every man in the district.—l am, &c, The Secretary. Cromwell, Sept. 11, 1874.