OUR ROADS AND PATHS. Won't the Corporation Repair Them?

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 49, 8 June 1901, Page 8

OUR ROADS AND PATHS. Won't the Corporation Repair Them ?

SPEAKING at Auckland, the other day, the Rev. Frank Isitt was pleased to observe that Wellington was the most drunken of our cities. The bumptious, if frank, Isitt must have obtained this impression through watching Wellingtonians walking along their footpaths, or cyclists bumping over our highways and byways. On this assumption, there may be some excuse for the Rev. Frank's remark, for the uneven pathways of Wellington would convert the most canny people into unsteady citizens. Let Mayor Aitken and others of our City Fathers stand under the Exchange Hall clock and look north along Lambton Quay during any part of the day when there is a throng of pedestrians abroad, and they will then get what must have been the Isittian view-pomt, which presents the greatest wobblescene New Zealanders may look upon between Auckland and Invercargill. * • • Frank Isitt apart, the condition of Wellington's paths and roadways is sufficiently bad to drive people to agitation, if not to liquidation. It is difficult to understand how the burgesses have submitted so long and so patiently to the scandalous outrofrepair state of things with which they have had to put up. About the only force that we Wellingtonians appear to have is the force of habit, and we go on growling to ourselves over the same old rute, channels, mud-puddles, and broken asphalt every day. It seems to have become an envied condition on Lambton Quay that it is better to have large feet than a small understanding. A modern wit has said that a dull man bores and a sharp man skins humanity, and this remark can be applied now to Wellington's pathways. At any rate, it is high time the citizens put a large foot down heavily upon the £oes of the City Fathers, so that they may be sharply brought to take their eyes off things decorative above, and look at what affects their soles. • • m Within a few days a great concourse of people from all parts of the colony will be tramping our streets, footsore and weary from much walking too and fro upon the earth. Is the Corporation going to improve the footpaths and roadways in order to ease the burden of the pedestrians, and make an impression upon their ideals rather than upon their footwear ? A gang of workers should be sent out at once to repair the footpaths, at least, from the top of Cuba-street to the Government Buildings. The burden of the bicyclist, who bumps his or her way over our thoroughfares, could not be much worse than it is. It might be wonderfully improved. Will the Corporation see to it?