THE ZOO

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 154, 25 March 1919, Page 8

THE ZOO

A CHALLENGE TO CITY COUNCILLORS. ■ Sir,—As uiy name has been freoly used in City Council meetings, and allusions have been made to mo in newspaper ■ reports touching a matter which the council has never investigated, I ask you to insert in your widely-circulated journal, to whose readers I am well known, the enelosea copies of letters which have been sent to the parties named in them.—l am. etc., JOHN CE.EWES. March 24. [Enclosure.] . 139 Kiddiford Street, Wellington, March 21. To Mr. M. F. Luckie, Chairman of the Baths, Libraries, and Beaches Committee. Sir, —As my name has been freely mentioned, and, by implication, my conduct in relation to certain zoological matters which are under the jurisdiction of the Wellington City Council has been unfairly criticised, where I have had no opportunity to refute.or explain, and as my friend Mr-. Cnstlo has been misrepresented by several of his fellow-council-lors. I have agreed with Councillor 'Castle to challenge you, as chairman of the above committee, and Councillor G, Frost, as chairman of the Reserves Committee, to come to the hall connected I with the library at Newtown, and there, in a public meeting, debate the following propositions:— (1) That tho Zoo has deplorably deteriorated; and that tho Newtown, or.Petherick. Museum, has not been maintained and utilised as it should havs been. (2) That tho Zoo is a merace to the health of the public. (3) That the City Council's management of the Zoo and the Museum has l:een highly censurable; and that tho two institutions nre not yielding results anything like commensurate with reasonable expectations from the amounts of money spent on them. If you will, accept the challenge please intimate immediately, thnt the debate may take place before the council elections.—l am, etc., JOHN CREWES. March 21. . ' FA similar letter is addressed to Councillor Frost, chairman of the Reserves Committee.]