TENTS AND HOVELS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 16, 20 January 1932, Page 6

TENTS AND HOVELS.

"I am at a loss to understand the object'of people crowding together at seaside resorts and occupying buildings deficient in lighting, ventilation and air space, and apparently with a total disregard for all the essential rules of health and comfort." Thus a country building and sanitary inspector, commenting upon the habits, not only of holiday folk, but upon those who, paying a small deposit upon a cheap section, put thereon a tent, whare or enlarged packing case, and use it as a residence. We are all overgrown children and still carry into middle ago the ways of children. There are afternoon tea and cakes upon the tabic; there are comfortable chairs for use. Watch the children. They prefer to crawl beneath the table, to sit in very cramped and uncomfortable attitudes upon the floor, and drink their tea from thimble-sized cups and pretend each cake or biscuit is many by breaking it into small pieces upon a doll's plate. There may be no doll, me discomfort willingly endured is an adventure, uncommon, unusual, out of the ordinary, and therefore enjoyable. It must be this spirit in which motorists and others leave comfortable homes where is every convenience and comfort to live for a time in a shack or a tent or m the car itself, eating .badly-cooked food in most uncomfortable circumstances; sleeping Whow , bathine roughly—often sandily or muddily—ami for days, perhaps weeks, without the usual supply of clean linen (clothing, towels and napery) and doing more and dirtier "chores than they would do at home. Sometimes "mother' does all the work, suffers all the discomfort and breathe* a long sigh of relief when the "holiday is ended. Perhaps it is the concentrated joy of returning home which makes the holiday. What one does for "fun" one would not do, without grumbling, for a living, and if the children were made to have all meals, at all times, under the table with inadequate cups and plates and cramped quarters they would lose the zest for picnic conditions The question of sanitation will soon have to be considered. Inspectors cannot cover all the bush, and the whole of our favoured coastline, and untidy people are more untidy when on holiday than when at home and conscious of a feeling ot fear of the neighbours' opinion. Out at Blockhouse Bay there are already "dumps of tins and less pleasant refuse along the cliffs, cliff paths and roadsides. The Auckland beaches arc always strewn with rubbish foreign to the locality, and outside city limits there is always evidence of lack of pride in streets, yards and wardens. The idea that "anything wilt do for the holiday, and equally for the section shack, must be destroyed. In England coastguards, timekeepers, rangers and the natural dislike ot being thought "piggish" keep beaches, riverside and woodlands in very fair order; the hooligans who are without thought, beyond beer and ginger bee- nuts and cakes, are coaxed away from beauty snots by garish amusements, set up in places they are permitted to strew with rubbish, so that they may not spoil the garden-like country districts. The capitalist who secures his land within high barriers has done much for the beauty ot Ellwand, but in this country we must depend upon the decency and good sense of our people to do all they can to enhance rather than destroy the natural advantages we have. There should be no camping ground without sanitation, no beach without a local supervisor, and no dweil ; ngs without water supply and drainage. It these are beyond possibility there should be a fine for everv breach of holiday recklessness and the fine should go to charity. —H.A.Y.