VANDALISM

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 290, 1 September 1920, Page 6

VANDALISM

DESTRUCTION OF PLANTATION TREES. Tho director of reserves (Mr. J., M'Kenzie), in conversation with a Dominion' representative yesterday, stated that destruction of trees c.n a wholesale scale had been goiiij* on for some lime past in the Mount Victoria and Newtown Park'plantations. The offence had been particularly grave in the plantation round the old quarry at the hnad of Ellico Street, where a lot of very fino pinus insignia and pinus muricatu had been ruthlessly hacked down nnd taken away, presumably for firewood. As tho result of these depredations being roude known to him a watch had been set and a number of peoplo.had been caught in the act. A list of twenty-two names had bnen supplied to the police, and prosecutions would no doubt follow. This sort of offenco against tho property of the people was, in the director's opinion, highly reprehensible, as ths council lincl beon doinpr R Rpod deal or planting at Central Park Tinakori Hills, Kilbirnie, and other places, at a considerable cost. If stern measures wero not at onco adoDtcd tho mischief would spread and tho work cf years would be undone. No such destruction was reported from Queen's Park (on the road to Wadestown) or from Oriental Bay, presumably because the people in those localities bad more respect, for public property. Some plantations abutted on rows of backyards, and it was a comparatively simple matter to lop off branches nnd remove them to private properly. The offence was very mean and contemptible, and. in the interests of tho city as a whole must bo out,a stop to at once.