THE PARK AND BATHING PLACE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2340, 3 October 1881, Page 3

THE PARK AND BATHING PLACE.

TO THU BDITOB. Sib, —It would surely have been better had your correspondent, 8. P. Andrews, avoided rushing into print in the manner he has done in Saturday’s issue. After reading his letter carefully, and having made myself fully acquainted with the question, I am quite at a loss to conceive what the object of the letter can be, unless it is intended as a little electioneering business. He speaks of “ beautiful trees being ruthlessly destroyed,” and so on. Now Mr Andrews is a gentleman for whom I have the highest respect as a private citizen and as a man who has done his best, as far as his abilities allow, as a Parliamentary representative for Christchurch. But however much I may esteem him, and although I might be very ready to consult him if about to plaster my house, yet I cannot believe, and I think very few will believe, that Mr Andrews is in any way qualified to set up as an authority on the treatment of trees. He is of course simply totally ignorant of the matter, as may readily be seen from a perusal of his short letter, ne sutor ultra crepidam, which, for the benefit of Mr Andrews, may be freely translated, “Let each man stick to his own trade.” Any person even slightly acquainted with the management of forest trees will readily notice that the trees in the particular plantation alluded to are very much too thick, and require the removal of at least one half of their number. If this is not done within a short time the trees will injure each other so much that the whole plantation will be seriously damaged. And yet Mr Andrews is attempting to raise a little storm in reference to such a trivial matter as the removal of a few superfluous trees, which are actually killing their neighbors. In pronouncing the trees to be too thick, it must not be supposed that it is intended to convey any censure of those who planted them. The thick planting was necessary for the shelter of the young plantations ; but the time has arrived when the shelter trees may be dispensed with. It is to be hoped that the Board will continue to cut down large numbers of the common trees in the gardens and park until the place is made to assume a less bush-like aspect. Mr Andrews has surely sufficient common sense to understand that it is not necessary to hold a public meeting every time a few poplar or sycamore trees have to be out down to give air and light to their neighbors. Then there is the question of the bathing place. Mr Andrews evidently thinks that the Board will stop bathing. Although there is no proof that such is the Board’s intention, yet I for one sincerely hope that it is. Mr Andrews is surely a very infrequent visitor at the gardens, or he would have long ago become convinced that the spectacle of a hundred men and big boys capering about stark naked on the river bank every afternoon during the summer season, within full view from the principal walk, is not —to say the least of it—very conducive to public morality. And it is a fact, sir, that ladies are compelled to avoid that part of the gardens and Park on account of the horrid scenes to be daily wit' eesed there, and the filthy and brutal language daily heard there. If Mr Andrews has any desire to improve the morals of the rising generation o f Christchurch, let him aid in sweeping away such a den of blackguardism as this bathing place has become, and let him also aid in the formation of a delightful shady path for the recreation of the people of this city, who have certainly much need of such a path. Really, sir, I am troubling you too much, for the people of Christchurch have too much good sense to allow themselves to be led into opposing a work which is entirely for their benefit, and which many of them have been demanding for a very long long time. May the Hagley Park plantations be properly thinned. May the public of this city have paths through them all and along the river from Helmore’s to the Hospital, and may the blackguardism of the bathing place be put a stop to in spite of 8. P. Andrews, is the wish of Yuurs, &e., A Fobbsxbe.