UNCLEAN!

NZ Truth, Issue 62, 25 August 1906, Page 1

UNCLEAN !

One thing that strikes. the stranger | .within our gates is the self-evident fact that our city fathers are utterly incompetent. Wickedly indifferent, or shamelessly the creatures of the capitalist and the landlord— that curse of this naturally beautiful spot whereon is pitched the capital ' of New Zealand. In this connection the word "pitched" is well chosen: It was pitched down anyhow, originally. As Sir, Robert Stout publicly said, the other day, it appears as if those who' had the laying out of the infant settlement never expected it to be more than a fishing village^ and those responsible for its welfare, improvement or new survey and , street alignment now, seems to have still no higher ambition for. the city; for even when opportunity arises tolay out a new, or iinprdwe an t>ld, street or roadj it is not, taken advantage of. No one in/authority ! seems to be capable of looking ahead, and it is to be-, feared that Wellington is doomed for all time to be a city of narrow .streets and" side-walks utterly inadequate to the foot traffic they are asked to carry rfpw, let alone that which it. is inevitaible<tbey > will be required to ,_■ bear lin the years ij to come;

All this is l^adenou^irand^ aggravating 'm the extreme to patriotic people, who WJvnt to see the capital city of their beloved land raised above reproach or ridicule. B-ut it is* as nothing to the continual shame < and menape of the horrible alleys,* •lanes and passage-ways that disgEace. the city and which appear never to! receive the slightest attention from the City Council. It is. a standing disgrace, the disgusting; insanitary condition of these filthy slums ; and' sure as the hills surround us, nothing but the winds for which the place is famous, preserves us from some outbreak of deadly epidemic fronn, this cause. In no other city m the colony do there exiist such vUelv m- 1 sanitary conditions, . such residential' slums m the -heart of the business . portion of the town, , In the most thronged commercial centres, it is-; common tq' come upon mere slits between the street-fronting buildings,^ leadjng to time-^vorn, never-sunned* and damp, decaying shanties, at the' "back, where families are bred andi reared amid disease-nurturing surroundings and whence emanate deadly vapours to assail and infect the passer-by. In scarcely a solitary m- : stance are these alley-ways paved, and during the recent wet weather the accumulated filth of hali-a-cen-tury, impregnated as it must be with-' the germs of 9,11 sorts of disease,, oozed and quaked under the feet of the shanty-dwellers, coated the boots of men, women and children and was carried into warehouse, shop, homeand school to scatter its bacHli among more favored people. '

That the building regulations of so important a city as Wellington* permit of the retention of these private dwellings at the rear of more' modern business structures, shows how little active interest the Councillors take m the welfare of the city and its deniaens, or else that* they are. interested themselves m pre--serving, this undesirable state of _ affairs. Indeed, it would-be interesting to know if any of our civic-, fathers are owners of -house-property m the city. If it should prove so themilk,in the cocoanut would be fully accounted for. What sort of men ,attd woman can thc children bom and reared m these dark dens be expected to become, even if they survive the ordeal of their childhood's .sordid surroundings ? Any wonder that phthisis and its kindred complaints are rife and that thc climate is fast losing its once world-wide fame -as one miraculously favorable to persons of susceptible lungs, when we keen on breeding colonists under such disadvantageous circumstances, circumstances such as render it marvellous if any so situated escape contamination' m their early youth. It would be wonderful if, under . such conditions, the crop of consumptives erer failed. ,

Then there are the wider lanes and blind alleys. All this winter one of the latter, running at the side of the White Swan Hotel, on Cuba-street, has been a reeking midden, usually covered with yard-litter ; an. eyesore and a danger to health. A 'few loads of metal and gravel and a run of the roller would have set this disgusting place right m a day ; yet it seems to •be nobody's duty to attend to it. Chew's Lane is another filthy, dia-

grace to the city and the mud-heads who run it. In rainy weather 'it is a chain of ponds and mudholes and has apparently never been formed or metalled, and yet it is a thoroughfare m the heart of the city. Luke's Lane was metalled about the time it ceased to be part of the beach and it has been scraped once or twice since. !,And the. dirt scraped off it still lies m reeking heaps at the side, against the walls of the abuttine buildings ! During the recent rains this neglected ..avenue has been almost impassable, though it carries a heavy pedestrian i traffic. The foul water lies m pools, and the stinking mud adheres to and disfigures everything brought m contact with it. If the Councillor who pretends to represent the ward of which Luke's Lane is __ part, could be present unseen some wet day and hear the curses invoked on his and the collective Council's head he would either shrivel up like grass before the breath, of the fire' king or else he would get a move on him and compel action m the way of cleaning and repairs.

As said before, such a state of .affairs renders Wellington easily first for the filth stakes, and only the smuch-abused high and ever shifting ■Wjinds save her from a pestilence. No city can be sanitary whose people -scoWey- m dank hovels _ shiit out from ivthe light of tiie sun,- behind and be"tweeh high business buildings, or •breathe, day and night, the poisonous a/ir m the lofts of fouly neglected and horribly stinking stables, as quite a number of women and children do, right here m Wellington. What is wanted to combat these .^dreadfully insanitary conditions is mew blood m the Council and m its iexecutive staff. To judge from the ; utter neglect of such .public places as *those named, both must be culpably negligent, while the fact that the ,- private "canals" and yards are allowed to remain m such a filthy, state, proves beyond a -shadow of a doubt /that the paid servants of the Council are utterly unfitted for or else -grossly neglectful -of the duties they are supposed to-be to attend to.