ABOUT FENCES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1123, 10 May 1911, Page 4

ABOUT FENCES.

DO THEY ENCOURAGE VANDALISMS' An effort is being made to improve the mid-street plantation at tho junction of Tnranaki Street. The old wooden picket.; fence is being removed, and in its placa' is to bo erccted a 3ft. iron-spiked fence,' standing on a brick base 10J inches in.j height. The plot is also to be surrounded by a footpath 3ft. Gin. in. width. Tliia arrangement only goes part of the way towards tho idea now favoured in larger cities, where a simple trust in the pub-' lie, backed by prompt punishment for. anything approaching vandalism, has had) the ofl'ect of creating a healthy respectai.d admiration for such urban oases. To, be quite in accord with the new idea, tho. fence should begin and end with tho, lOin. base. There is no reason to 6up-, pose that the public of Wellington would) destcrate such mid-city reserves any more; llian I hey do in Sydney, Melbourne, or, San Francisco. It is the fence—ill case the spiked iron fence—which seems; to.engender a spirit of destruction, in tho same manner as a wilful child will do just what they are warned not to do. The low coping should lie given a clinnce: in Courtenay Place. In America tho front fence lo a residence is (lie reverso of general, and vandalism as applied to, the destruction of turf> trees, or garden plots is practically unknown.