“LEST WE FORGET.”

Shannon News, 1 November 1921, Page 1

“LEST WE FORGET.”

HOW WAN GAN til TREATS ITS MEMORIALS. Hearing that some flowers were to lie seen on the south Airiean War jMehiorial in look's Garueiia, a Wanganui Chronicle reporter yesterday visited it in order to verily what ia generally thought to he an unprecedented event. The iinormation was technically correct, hut they had come there in the ordinary course of nature. The flowers were those which grow on “sour thistles” and dandelion ■, plants. Grass grows in prolusion between the granite boulders at the . base oi the obelisk, which also provide fine receptacles lor orange skins, dirty paper, broken beer bottles, moss and debris ol other* kinds. Two terraces below, there are some granite boulders, no doubt brought there by the force of gravity, aided by vandal hands. Near, to the war memorial is one of another kind, to a man of peace, the Watt Memorial Fountain. It bears the inscription: “Honour to whom honour is due. Memorial Fountain erected by the people oi Wanganui in honour of Win. Hogg Watt, Esq., Mayor of the borough, whose munificent gift to the Town of Westmere Lake for a water supply will ever be gratefully remembered. 1881.” Once upon a time* this memorial was a striking feature in the Wanganui streets. It was a thing of beauty as well as of Utility. The position was an ideal one—-but unfortunately times changed and the land was found to be far., too valuable for a mere fountain. The monument had to go. It was moved on to its present site in Cook’s Gardens, and k)me day it will be moved bn again when its site is coveted for something else. It is a derelict now. The lamps are dismantled; it is scribqn and scratched, and its concrete basins when full of rain water (and orange skins, paper, cigarette butts and stones) are a stagnant green. One of the marble slabs,,lhat Which carries the inscription, is not defaced.