Citizens Say —

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 304, 15 March 1928, Page 10

Citizens Say

(To the Editor.)

CANCER Sir,— It is rather a remarkable thing that somewhere in the Scriptures we are warned against what I take to be the cause of cancer. Civilisation not only induces us to disregard that warning, but leads us to unwittingly make the mistake in a greater degree than the Scriptures contemplated. For those of your readers who may be disposed to take me seriously here is a riddle that will be a change from the crossword puzzle. FREDERICK R. FIELD. TELEPHONE BOOTHS Sir, Permit me to support your correspondent, “Regular User,” with reference to public telephone booths in Auckland. If the baths have anything on these boxes as places for harbouring disease germs, I should be surprised to hear it. Going into one of them is like going into an oven, and their whole atmosphere seems foul and unpleasant. Any hot day, at the post office, you can see the line of booths, all occupied, but with people keeping the doors open, or opening and closing the doors all the time, because th<% r would suffocate if they did not have some sort of a draught. The new pillboxes put up in the suburbs are as bad or worse. It is time a rational and hygienic design was adopted. ANOTHER R.U. POLLUTION OF THE HARBOUR Sir,— The public of Auckland is grateful to you for your outspoken articles on the subject of harbour pollution which those living near the waterfront know perfectly well is caused by the sewage liberated into the harbour at Orakei, and which is blown and brought back along all the foreshore by the tides. Your article in this evening’s paper mentions “an apathetic public”; this, I think, is undeserved, as the public is not “apathetic,” but powerless in the hands of our governing bodies. What can the public do in such matters except try and enlist the sympathy and aid the Press in exposing ineptitude and dangers. In a report published in another part of your paper, Councillor Entrican is reported as deprecating “alarmist” reports, and saying that the dirty water in the Parnell Baths was caused by the breakage in the pipe, and that all the filth and slush recently cleaned from the baths and which had been merely shovelled over the bath walls was apparently finding its way into the baths again.. Now, quite apart from the filth and siush finding its way back into the baths —what about the filth and slush finding its way on to Judges Bay beach, where more children and people k f, nd , swim than attend the baths. Here is a beach and bay that was a perfect little paradise until defiled by the railway embankment; now neglected and made septic by the floating sewage and slush and filth cleared from the Par-

nell Baths and allowed to wash and settle along the’ beach. “Alarmist reports” sounds a very tame expression in the circumstances. I have been a daily early morning visitor to Judges Bay, winter and summer, for the past six years, and my connection with the St. George’s Rowing Club in the bay goes back to the year 1902 when I first joined the club, and I can confidently assert that the sewage from the Orakei outfall comes back along the beaches. I have seen many acres of water covered with sewage in the early mornings before the wind has risen to make waves which, when formed, broke this slimy sewage up and hid it from sight—although still there mixed with the water. It seems imperative that some action should be taken to instal a new sewage system and divert the sewage to the West Coast, where the open sea and the constant beat of the waves would ensure purification at the sewage outlet. V. DUNNE.

CHAIN LETTERS Sir,— I have received to-day one of those abominable letters which purport to girdle the earth in an endless chain. It is couched in the usual imbecile fashion, stating that all good things will happen to the person who forwards copies of the letter to four friends and that black misfortune will overtake him who has the temerity to disobey the command. Could anything be more objectionable than this foolery? I sincerely hope that all citizens who receive these chain-letters will burn them. It may mean a loss of revenue to the postal authorities, but it will save thousands of women from worrying about what will happen to them if they don’t spend fourpence, and hundreds of men from using unprintable language. NORMAL. BRITISH OR FRENCH JUSTICE? Sir,— A few days ago during the hearing of a case against a bookmaker at Hamilton it was said that, under the Gaming Act, a man had to prove himself innocent. If this remark was correctly reported, does it not indicate that the liberties our fathers fought for have been filched from us. It is an axiom of British law that an accused person must be proved guilty before being sentenced for an offience. Apparently we have followed the French law, which demands that an accused person must, prove himself innocent. The people of Mew Zealand are certainly not aware of this departure from English tradition and legal practice. If there are many other statutes embodying this French legal system, then it throws a great light on the staggering fact that there are ten times the number of prisoners in New Zealand gaols that there are in Mew South Wales, in proportion to the population. We pride ourselves on the that we are the most English of yet apparently we have adopted Continental principles of jus-

tice. Our outstanding tion is disconcerting, and the requires close investigation. A inent magistrate’s naive * X P , that we are a moral people, our police are supermen 1» JJJIj \e& convincing. I hope some qualin man will answer this letter plain where and why we are from the principles of our tatn^ ENGLAND EVERY TIM* “A BLANK BOOK” During the past few days s strange epistles have been, cfV in the Auckland district- *.. . gJk munications, if they can be c —have arrived through the pc envelope contains a # small red-covered book gl’> centre on one side. Th« > this inscription, “What tee tion promises to do for tne Man.” The little red cover. turned back, discloses T €! pages of pure white--‘‘>oth clever, perhaps, but uri P ar ■■ Why? Because the missi t | signed. ... ~*ich * I can find no words wlt r tter #0 describe my contempt — of such unprincipled tacn» ** thing the Opposition nia> J o „e *0 in an election campaign 1 n trinJ the name of the party. M ggbri 1 independent attitude in *£. «t* * take the pleasure of thal^ r - c e to r anticipation for granting *v this before the public. * JH