The Daily News THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11. CURRENT COMMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81862, 11 October 1906, Page 2

The Daily News THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11. CURRENT COMMENT.

Whilst local bodies can easily swallow the fabulous camel they are often found stiaining at a gnat. The New Plymouth Borough Council did so on Monday night, when it decided that it had no legal power to fall in with die suggestion of Mr Tisch, chairman of the Taranaki Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, to set aside a small poition cf Te Ilenui Cemetery for the burial of the old folk who from time to time die at the OUI People's Home. The Reserves Ccmmittee recommended the Council to so allot a piece of ground, and the usual lengthy discussion followed. The Council soon found, and elaborated, its position, that it had no legal right. It wou'd not have been so bad had the matter rested there. But cold legal points gave place to sentiment, and councilors pictured in fancy phrases the result of the adoption of the plan suggested. U would mean, they said, that a "pauper's corner" would be made. People would see the little wayside plot, and point the finger, presumably of scorn, and say "That's where they bury the folks from the Old People's Home." It did not seem to strike the councillors that it is possible now to locate these graves by the woefully apparent neglect. 0*- that the proposal was to erect a substantial concrete and iron fence around the plot so that the graves of these oM people—many of them nowfriendless after having fought the country's battles' with the sword, and mastered the wilderness with axe, saw, and plough —might be kept trim and neat. It did not strike the council lor ! that here was a genuine offer to assist in still further beautifying on' of the most beautiful and the best kepi cemeteries in the colony, or that the municipal authorises, and not the old people, would be the gainers. Wlier :Ivj Council is prepared time after time to ride rough-shod over its own bylaws, it does not appear consistcn to refuse to assist in giving decent burial to our aged and needy colonists. "Let them be buried with the rest," ejaculated one of the councilors, —and he might have added, "let the graves lie neglected and unprotected, and let the children and careless folk trample and scramble over the mounds which indicate the last resting-place of those who have done much to make this colony and this district what it is."