THE PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2563, 8 June 1881, Page 2

THE PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION

[to the editor]

Sir, —I am at a loss to find an excuse for again trespassing on your generosity for space in your columns, but being the only medium to advance the interests of the peopltj and the times we live in, I trust you will accept my apology. Tiranru is a wonderful city, and if left in the hands of our wonderful Council, will some day surpass London, Paris, and New York. Year by year our rates are surcharged and the coffers of this immaculate body are increasing, and by their wisdom it needs only rain, and 6000 people will be living in mud, with the satisfaction that when the wind blows they will be buried in dust, and by the two elements the work of the scavenger is done, and the science of life and death in Timaru completed. If wo require more proof of the advance of civilisation in the nineteenth century, let us take a glance at the West Town Bolt. Its condition will require a more able pen than mine to describe it, but I am sure that no Chamber of Horrors can reveal so much sorrow and suffering as those who live in this neighborhood have to endure.

Three years ago the Council undertook the work of reformation and repairs of this road, and up to the present all they have done is to endanger life and property. From the Catholic Church onward deep cuttings, mounds, dykes, holes, bogs, and mud, is the condition left by this august body, whose official negligence is a disgrace to the age wc lire in. They had no right to commence such a work without keeping it until finished. Accidents often happen, children at times cannot go to school, the high road being dangerous and impassable. Property will not let or sell at a sacrifice, and rain stares some in the face, and there is little prospect that anything more will be done.

What is done with our money is a question we cannot solve; it is cnly legalised by the name of borough rates, but if abstracted from a councillor and expended the same vile wa}', it would be called obtaining money under false pretences, and punished accordingly. Wo have about had enough of it, and we intend to button up our pockets and refuse to pay any more rates, until the West Town Belt work is done, and leave tlie Council to its remedy.—l am, &a.

G. KIMBER