NEGLECTED TREASURE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 67, 20 March 1907, Page 8

NEGLECTED TREASURE.

THE COLONIAL MUSEUM. ATTACKED BY RAIN. At last the Government has recognised that the treasures in the Colonial Museum are worth preserving from fire. Much persuasion was needed to convince the beads of the State that the care of the goods justified the expenditure needed for a night watchman, but at length the authorities admitted that there was something in the argument, and a man was appointed to keep watch and ward during the hours of darkness. But this employee, however vigilant, cannot keep out the rain. There is no aperture too sacred for the shafts of the southerly or northerly. Therefore the Colonial Museum has not been spared by the storm ; the elements held high revel op the dilapidated roof of the ancient building. The whole of the Toof and spouting are more or less perished. When there is heavy, persistent ram, or even a sharp shower, water makes its way through numerous places in various parts of the building. Two or three times during the last eighteen months there has been a necessity to remove records and papers from the offices, owing to the attentions of the rain. Although, so far, the library has been saved, there is a very justifiable fear that any day an exceptionally heavy downpour may do damage to tho valuable books. The museum building proper leaks in la. number of places, but the expense of I satisfactorily effecting repairs is said to be scarcely warranted by the deplorable condition of the structure. When bad weather is approaching, great care has to be exercised by the attendants to keep the specimens from suffering injury. From time to time it has been announced that the Government was about to erect a now building, but at the present rate of progress the undertaking will be mostly in the air for a long time yet. In the meantime there is a danger of disaster to the present edifice and its contents. ___ m _____^^^