TOWN COUNCIL CEMETERY MEMORIAL COMMITTEE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 87, 9 October 1869, Page 3

TOWN COUNCIL CEMETERY MEMORIAL COMMITTEE.

This Committee met on Thursday even, ing last, in the Council Chamber. All the members were present. Councillor Harrop was in the chair. The following petition was unanimously adopted after considerable conversation, during which several alterations and important additions were made in and to the original draft :— To His Honour James Macandrew, Esq., Superintendent of the Province of Otago ; and to the Executive Council of the said Province • The Petition of the Town Council of the Incorporated Town of Lawrence, in the Province aforesaid, humbly sheweth — 1. That your Petitioners are the representatives of the ra+epayers residing within the Municipality of Lawrence. 2. That attached to this Municipality i there is a General Cemetery, the management of which is vested in certain Trustees . 3. That at the last meeting of the Town Council, held on Wednesday, the 29fch day of September, 1869, the following resolution was unanimously agreed to :—: — " That this Council, being of opinion that the management of the Lawrence Cemetery has from first to last been grossly neglected by the Trustees, is determined to do everything in its power to obtain a change in the management : resolved, therefore, that a respectful memorial be addressed and forwarded to his Honour the Superintendent, embodying the whole grievance, and praying for the exercise of extraordinary powers in order to redress the same. That Crs. Harrop, Mears, Henry, and the mover be appointed a committee to prepare the memorial, to sign it on behalf of the Council, aud to append to it the Corporation seal. This resolution to form part of the preamble to the said memorial." Your Petitioners, in accordance with such resolution arrived at as hereinbefore stated, humbly submit the following facts for your consideration :—: —

1. That ever since the appointment of the said Trustees the affairs n£ the Cemetery have been entirely neglected — so much so, that the ground is little better than a commonage for horses and cattle. 2. That upon varioxis occasions the negligence of the Trustees has been brought under your notice and that of tha Provincial Government of Otago ; and that some months since a promise was made to the Mayor of Lawrence, Horace Bastings, Esq., J.P., by his Honour the Superintendent of Otago, that the Cemetery trust should be vested in the Town Council.

3. That certain of the present Trustees having declined to resign, after having been requesied by his Honour the Superintendent so to do, has been urged by you as the reason why the promise hereinbefore alluded to has not been kept. 4. That the inhabitants of thia Municipality have for a long time past urged upon the Trustees the necessity of putting the Cemetery into decent order ; but that every such representation has been uiiheeded by the Trustees, to the great annoyance and vexation of your petitioners. 5. That many of your pstitioners have relations and friends buried in the Cemetery, over whose graves flowers and shrubs have from time to time been planted ; and that the feelings of your petitioners, and those whom they represent, are constantly outraged by the Trustees permitting cattle to depasture in the Cemetery and destroy the flowers and shrills which should render the place pleasant to the eye and attractive as a public resort. 6. That the Trustees have received a very large amount of money from the burial fees, as well as from the Government by way of subsidy ; aud that they have allowed the funds to lie idle, instead of expending them for the benefit of the trust which has been placed in their hands. 7. That up till about six. months ago the Trustees never held a single meeting for upwards of eighteen months, during thg whole of which time the Cemetery was in the same disgraceful position as at present.

8. That upon one (recent) occasion five graves had to be opened in order to ascertain the whereabouts of a child who had been buried but a short time before - another death having taken place in the same family.

9. That more recently four graves had to be opened under similar circumstances.

10. That the Secretary to the Trustees has declared his utter inability to point out to the executors of the late Thomas Wi^on (who was buried in the Lawrence Cemetery nine months ago) the spot where the said Thomas Wilson is buried ; and that the said executors are consequently prevented from erecting the headstone and railing which they have long since bought and paid for, and which, by the will of the said Thomas Wilson, is ordered to be erected; and further, that there are many other persons buried in the Lawrence Cemetery the whereabouts of whose graves is wholly unknown to the Trustees or to their Secretary, and that the only means of ascertaining such whereabouts is entirely dependent \ipon the precarious memory of the sevton, an old man aged seventy, unable either to read or write ; and that any appeal to him is naturally responded to by a reply which is merely guess-work. 11. That a most elaborate plan has been in existence from the very first, and that if any record had been kept, no confusion such as now exists could have taken place. 12. That the state of the so-called pauper portion of the Cemetery is simply disgusting and abhorrent to the natural instincts (to say nothing of the finer feelings) of a civilized community. 13. That in the aforesaid pauper portion of the Cemetery numbers of persons who have died in Hospital and elsewhere have been interred, and that «o record of any kind whatever has been kept as to the whereabouts of each person's grave ; consequently any relative hereafter wishing to find a particular grave would be wholly unable to do so ; and this uncertainty is augmented by the friends of persons buried in pauper ground being prohibited from erecting anything in the shape of a monument.

14. That your petitioners have left no atone unturned to call into action the latent energies of the Trustees ; but, having failed, your petitioners are deter-

mined to leave no legitimate means untried to transplant the trust, in order that the Cemetery may be decently managed. Your petitioners therefore pray that you will be plowed to exercise extraordinary powers, dismiss the present Trustees, and place the trust in the hands of those who will perform the duties connected with it.