MARRING OF SCENERY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 94, 29 November 1939, Page 3

MARRING OF SCENERY

ROADSIDE "ADS."

Although New Zealandcrs find much cause to protest against some of the roadside hoarding which spoil views of scenery, the evil is not yet :us exasperating as it is in America. Here is some terse editorial comment in the Florida Magazine:—

"Just how long are tiie people of Florida going to allow their beautiful highways and traffic thoroughfares to be cluttered up with nondescript and billboards? Big ones, little ones! Old ones! Ugly ones! Glaring, screaming billboards? Ragged,, battered and bent signs. They leer at you from trees and yell at you from ditches—they come rushing at you from over the hilltops and gnaw ait your vitals from around curves —steam heated ... liver pills ... inner springs baffle cars ... b-o----tonic ... the watis hotel ... squirma shav ... and by the time you've; gone a few miles your head is in such a whirl trying to ignorfe the obnoxious things and keep reading them, that before you know it you' start dodging them as if they were racing toward you.

"Billboards and signs on the highways are a menace to safety and acurse on our virgin forests and broad landscapes. Besides that, they are a travesty on the intelligence of the American peopie. Everywhereyou go these ghiring illegitimate children of the graphic arts are prac tically 'rammed dov. r n your .-throat'' : n a manner that is most distasteful' o an intelligent person."