TUAKAU—ITS EASTERN ATMOSPHERE.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 698, 10 January 1922, Page 5

TUAKAU—ITS EASTERN ATMOSPHERE.

(To the Editor).

Sir, —I have just visited Tuakau for the purpose of buying a nice little place and building a home, and was shown several lovely spots, but ! The first sections were by the Presbyterian and English Churches, and whilst viewing them I asked my guide what was the peculiar heavy odour that seemed quite thick thereat outs. He put me off. Next we viewed a couple of splendid sites a bit along the Whangarata Road. Here the same odour seemed to be predominating. However, it was a very hot day, so I wouldn’t decide and returned to where I was staying. In the cool of the evening I again visited the sections alone to make a choice but the air everywhere about had a sort of nasty taste and smell, and. when I got near the Presbyterian Church I felt quite unwell.. You kno' r hew in the evening the scents of roses and all flowers flow in 'ragrant profusion Into the atmosphere and so beautifully delight the senses that peace and content pervade one’s being. Well, Sir, so did that mid-day odour develop, intensify and multiply by sundown till it was a real thickness In the air—a noisome, sickening thing that surely would physically hurt and injure children- and babies. The lower quarter of to.wns in the East have a somewhat similar smell, where the natives thrown their refuse into the street to putrefy in the blazing sun, and where the myriad flies profusely bred, feed on sore cattle and' children’s eyes, and noses. I fancied myself again in that East —those cities of the Orient. An old man, when questioned, told me that it was “only the pig-styes” of the neighbours. “They are rarely cleaned, and we haven’t a sanitary inspector, and the pig-sty owners have got used to it, and those who don’t own pigs are afraid to report their neighbours and friends.” When I went to the Whangarata sections I was more than overcome, it was awful, and I left by the next train for Fukekohe where (Heaven be praised!) I can make a home with I,'od’s fresh, pure"' sweet air all about and where I can open my lungs to their limit and drink it in. T am not writing this in any hitter spirit, simply as a helpful criticism for the Tuakau powers-that-be to show how a family that would have bought land, built a house, and sent children to school has been driven away through some slackness somewhere. Tuakau appealed to me immensely in other ways, the lovely, settled district, rich soil, pretty surroundings, and English appearance. Yours in sorrow. RETIRED.