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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2411, 8 December 1880, Page 2

Tun vexed question of the site of the new Mechanics’ Institute has been decided. The new structure is destined to rise like Phoenix from the ashes of the. old one. All the ingenious efforts to get it alongside of the Post and Telegraph offices have proved unavailing, for the simple reason that the subscribers were not to be converted. The question of site can hardly be said to have been decided on its merits. A foregone conclusion having been arrived at, all argument was prohibited. It is satisfactory that the fire has been quenched. Let us hope that the proverbial calm will succeed the storm. It was a miserable little teapot storm at the best. Yet it excited for the time] being a good deal of bad blood and uncharitable feeling. The belligerents will now have the opportunity of beating their swords into reaping hooks and going in for improving their stock of literature. The library, we understand, is not exactly what it should be, either as regards extent or selection, and this is said to be one of the reasons why it lias not attracted sufficient subscribers hitherto to place it on a payable independent footing. Another fault is the rate of subscription, which is alleged to be higher than what is charged in most metropolitan and provincial towns. In Ashburton, with its comparitivcly small and scattered population, the charge for membership is only half what it is in Tirnaru, and the library is very fairly supported, although it depends simply on its own resources. The new committee, however, refreshed by the patronage of the Insurance Companies, will be able to commence de novo. They have a capital lieid for the exercise of their energies as reformers. Having adopted the old site, their first step should be to counteract any drawbacks by rendering it as attractive as possible. Hitherto the library could hardly bo called a public library. Its roll of members represented a very minute fraction of the population, and it has had chiefly to depend for its sustenance on concerts, balls, skating rinks, and Church bazaars. Unless it can command the public patronage it will inevitably be superseded. A public library and reading room is one of the most valuable institutions that a community can establish, but it must not be a dead and alive article. To be useful it must be like a public fountain —easy of access—a place from which everyone who is. thirsty can drink. The financial results, are as nothing alongside of the important effects that flow from widely disseminated literature of the right sort. Good books, like good companions, make excellent citizens, and contribute to the individual and general welfare and enjoyment of the inhabitants. If

the managers of the Timaru Mechanics Institute cannot-popularise their library and reading room a little better than they have done hitherto, they will run the risk of finding their task superseded by, an institution that will be a public library in reality as well as in name.

The Timaru Cemetery Board for want apparently of a better occupation are diligently engaged at present making a huge mountain out of a very small molehill. They have discovered that a few acres of land originally granted as a Northern Cemetery Reserve is about to be taken from their control. The reserve in question consists of a small paddock of four acres on the Wai-iti road. It is surrounded with residences, the population in the neighborhood is ‘rapidly growing denser, and there are numerous powerful reasons why it should not be applied to the purposes of a cemetery. About twelve months ago some of the inhabitants, finding that it w-as being let from year to year by the Cemetery trustees as a cow' run, took steps to have it proclaimed a public park. Although everything which they performed was done in an open anil above board manner, the grave diggers slumbered for a season. Now that there is an immediate prospect of the c ows being turned off, and the paddock converted into a neat little public park for the north end of the town they have suddenly awakened. Their chairman writes a vigorous letter of remonstrance to the Colonial Secretary, and bis editor publicly thanks him through the leading - columns of his own journal. Nobody will envy him these compliments, although many will hold their valuc in light esteem. But the obsequious palavcror goes further and roundly abuses the petitioners for attempting to convert a private cow paddock into a public pleasure ground. He accuses them of defrauding the Cemetery Board and robbing the public. Well, the conversion of this magnificent cow-run into a public park means a loss of revenue to the gravediggers of £;1 per year. This of course is a severe blow for the sextons, but it is to be hoped they will survive the infliction. We pity them, and w-e are sure the public will also deeply sympathise with their sorrow's. At the same time w'e imagine that citizens generally, with the exception of a certain lugubrious editor ami a fulsornely beslavered newspaper proprietor, will prefer to see a private cow'paddock beautified with trees and shrubs and throw'll open to the public, even if it involves a deprivation on tiie part of the Timaru gravediggers of the magnificent annual revenue of sixty shillings.