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Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3084, 6 January 1879, Page 2

The willows and - poplars planted in the streets of the Borough, which are just now in their prime—a few of which are even now a grateful shade from the heat of the sun and occasionally a shelter from the rain—are being damaged considerably by goats and boys. The former are eating away the bark from the stumps, and some of then: stand on their hind legs and bite off the lowest drooping shoots. The boys, especially the butchers' boys, do more harm than the goats. If in want of a switch, they ride under one of the trees and drag off a branch, very frequently breaking away one of the main shoots of the tree. It would be well, perhaps, to remind these, youths that the trees in the streets are; the property of the Borough, and thj&t; they can be punished as severely for mutilating these trees as if they went into a private garden and broke <>ff branches. An example will have to be made of some of them if they do not desist from this pernicious practice. As for the goats, we should like to see a couple of constables told off to. make a special raid on these; public nuisances and universal depredators.