BOYS' OWN COLUMN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOYS' OWN COLUMN.

LET US TIDY UP,

MORE RAVAGES OF THE LITTER LOUT.

Dear Boys,

Again I must take up my pen and wage war against that rogue of rogues, the litter lout. Accompanied by a friend I camped at Muriwai on Tuesday, January 28—the night before Anniversary Day. The grounds were as clear and clean as one could wish. When we set out along the beach ours was the only tent and car. Returning for lunch we found the area congested with cars, and picnic parties were everywhere. Whilst we were lunching a luxurious car of expensive make drove up and parked beside us. The occupants spread a cloth on the grass and prepared lunch. Paper wrappngs from the lunch basket were tossed aside on to the grass, and, most disgusting of all, fruit peelings, cores, and stones were flung aside with the same lack of decency. For lack of decency it is. One cannot imagine those same people casting on to the floor of their dining room discarded food from the table. Why should people treat God's carpet of grass in a way they would not tolerate for a moment in their own home? It is not as though receptacles were absent. Why, within two yards of the car in question there was a huge bin for rubbish, and staring them in the face that delightful though hard hitting parody on "A Psalm of Life," which reads:—

Lives of tourists should remind us As their trails we often see, Not to leave empty tins behind us, Paper, food and such debris.

Methinks that when humour makes no appeal the warning should be TH®re direct, and of the " Drop no litter here .... this means you" variety. The decency of some may be moved by the following:— Good friends who to this spot repair, Rest and be thankful, but forbear With sordid scraps the ground to strewy^ Others rest here as well as you. However, it seems- that the only way to reach the litter lout' is to hammer, hammer on his thick skull until at last this daily despoiling of X [/ f . our beauty cpots ceases. Boys and >oT girls, I charge you to help wage war and to rout the litter lout.