THE CEMETERY SCANDAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 297, 12 June 1912, Page 4

THE CEMETERY SCANDAL.

The cemetery scandal readied another stage of its development on Monday night, a stage which, we hope, will see the end of it. The dispute has been neither a dignified one nor a wholesome one, and it must naturally have been extremely painful to those around whose dead the wrangle has centred. However distasteful it may be, it is the obvious duty of a newspaper, in the interests of the general community, to frankly discuss such a subject when it is brought under public notice. Probably the exploitation of the incident will result in the Borough Council exercising a stricter and mare judicious control over cemetery matters in the future, and if this end has been achieved we shall be perfectly satisfied to allow the matter to remain where it is. We have no apologies to offer to Councillor Buttimore, who even accepting his own estimate of his action, appears to have behaved in a manner that was both intensely childish and unspeakably foolish. The sexton, too, seems to have been indiscreet in his method of facing a contingency that must have been decidedly amazing. There is an uneasy feeling prevalent that the incident has been seized upon as an excuse for getting rid of an over-zealous servant, and if this is really so we can only regret that the supineness of the authorities allowed the dispute to centre around such an unfortunate episode. What we are more concerned with is the attitude of Councillor Buttimore and the allegations with regard to the administration of the cemetery which have been made public as a result of this unsavory incident. Councillor Buttimore practically admits having broken a cemetery by-law in the matter of the disposal of rubbish, and whilst we give him every credit for not having deliberately intended to offend, the very fact of his having held the most responsible position in the management of the cemetery should have made him doubly careful to see that his personal connection with our "God's Acre" was seemly and proper and free from all reproach. The Council, not unnaturally, had some little diffidence in approaching the subject at all, but while giving councillors credit for their good taste in this respect we still think that the whole subject might have been thoroughly threshed out while it was before the meeting. As it was, the question of the disinterment that took place while Councillor Buttimore was chairman of the Eeserves Committee—a statement over which Councillor Buttimore calls us ; to account, but which we have taken the trouble to verify was barely touched upon, and the allegation of the encroachment upon the cemetery footpaths was not even mentioned. We do not wish to labor these points, believing as we do that the public ventilation of them will have already induced the Council to resolve to keep a very watchful eye upon the administration of the cemetery in future, and to prevent the recurrence of a scandal which, it would seem, had its origin in an ulterior motive. But our sacred "Garden of Sleep" should not be prostituted to such purposes, and the long corridors of death are certainly not a suitable background for the ventilation of personal grievances. We can only hope that the management of the cemetery in future will be so far beyond reproach as to obviate the necessity for any further reference to this unseemly wrangle.