Children Leave £1200 Trail Of Destruction

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29748, 15 February 1962, Page 12

Children Leave £1200 Trail Of Destruction

(New Zealand Press Association)

PALM. NORTH, Feb. 14.

Four young children, aged between three-and-a-half and 11. left a trail of destruction behind them, estimated to have cost £l2OO. in the Terrace End Cemetery at Palmerston North on Saturday They smashed over 350 glass wreath covers on graves in the cemetery. The youngest was seen picking up large stones and dropping them on the glass covers. The incident was witnessed by a woman, a visitor from Auckland who caught the children in the act of smashing some of the cases. She took their names and gave them to the police, and later forwarded the names to the Palmerston North City Council along with a statement. The sexton. Mr G. D Walker, saw the damage qp

Sunday morning and reported the matter to the police. On .donday morning he started a door-to-door inquiry and eventually discovered the home in which the woman from Auckland was staying with relatives. After a comprehensive check, he found that over 350 cases had been smashed—at 350 he stopped counting. Mr Walker estimated that it will take several days to clean up the broken glass. In his 2P years as sextan he had never heard of a worse case, although there had been minor instances over the years The cases can never be replaced A few years ago when they were first purchased they would have been worth about £4 each Mr Walker now estimated the aoproximate value to oe about 12gns each.