TO-DAY & TO-MOEIIOW

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 147, 18 December 1907, Page 7

TO-DAY & TO-MOEIIOW

PEEPS AT WELLINGTON. PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTUEE, 'A CITY OF HUSTLE. Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing, Wiiilo the sun. and the rain live these ehall lie, JTill a last wind's breith upon all those blowing Roll the sea. Onco upon a time two men were arguing in a Wellington boardings house. One was a New Zealander, the other a recently-imported Scotchman. , The subject was art of tho seventh de- * gree, and the Scotchman glowed about Naples. "Where here," he asked, "can you see the magnificent marble -hall 3 of JKaples? The saying of the Neapoli : ' tare is true — 'sec Naples, and die.'* 1 "Tiiat is true," conceded the New Zealander. "See Naples, live in Naples, and die, utterly and absolutely. Tha marble is all right. in its way, but what about the sewage system? Can Naples . teach .Wellington anything in the sanitation of houses? Is it better to have marble for the eye and smells for th« nose, or brick for the eye and nothing for the nose?" The Scotchman held hia peace. Tho speech of the utilitarian apiked even the guns of his wrath. WELLINGTON HAS DONE SOMETHING. , Wellington is like Venice in a way,only a lowly way. The wanderers in !the Adriatic raised their city upon a wa&to of waters. The pilgrims of tha Fiicific and their descendants have also sot up an empire over the waters. Wellington has not yet built a respectable ■ art gallery, but it has done something. It has torn down ' hills, and . hurled them' at Neptune, compelling him to withdraw his waves and make room for man. The ocean is mighty, as many a poet' has sung, but man is mightier, though ocean has still ,an unpleasant '• habit of working s revenge now and , then. , Men go to and , fro upon tha earth.;- they bargain and make merry, too, in' places where the muto fishes once wagged their tails in peace. -. CHANGES OF SCENE AND TUNE. Any eye may see to-day in the curves of Lambton-quay and Victoria-street tHe outline of old beaches. In places where the sad sea waves once murmured the electric car now moans, and where once the masts of yachts swayed againsfc the sky, the trolly-pole now has come, ' Once the waves had dominion all over the flat fronting Thorndon-quay, Lamb-ton-quay, Willis-street, Victoria-street, all around to the old destructor, which has been creating as well as demolishing. With the ash from the ancient cabbage and other things, and with the remnants of the jam tin, the wild' waves have been beaten back till land has been won to make room for a sue* • cessor to the old -destroyer, SINCE 1852. It was in the days of Sir George Grey, in 4852, that Wellington firsf, seriously took off its coat, and told the sea to clear out. The waters were attacked near the present Harbour-streefc, and the land marched from Old Custom-house-streot, around the old Evening Post corner (now called Carroll's corner) to the site of the l Oddfellows' Hall, nearly opposite the Kelburne-avenuo. Next the Provincial Government took a hand, and pushed the shore along beyond Waring Taylor-street. In the meantime the General Government had reclaimed the site of tht* present Gov^ eminent Buildings. At about this time the provinces died a natural death, and the General Government took over the provincial enterprise, and advanced with ifc as far as the Thorndon baths, Tho Manawatu Railway Company was also busily at work, and ■so was tha Harbour Board and the City Council, which began the enlargement of tha Te Aro Fiat by seventy acres, a project on which the corporation is still engaged, t By 30th June, 1899, it was ' estimated that about ]75 acres had been annexed from the sea, and since then the conquering operations, havo never been relaxed. The dredge WhakaTire, which sobs over its tasks night and day, is helping the Harbour Board to make a stretch of about forty acres in extension of Waterloo-quay. On land which has been grabbed fromkh© ocean •the city's best buildings 6tand. Tha cost of the battle for the territory ran into hundreds of thousands, ,but the value has now galloped into millions of pounds. A COUPLE OF INCIDENTS. At one time the Government ' railway ran along Thorndoh-quay, some distance inland from tho present Manawatu line, and the station was at Pipitca Point. Wellington narrowly missed a valuable endowment In its last days .tho Provincial Government let a contract to Mr. W. Tonks for a reclamation which was to extend as far as tha* Thorndon Government station. Mr. Dransfield was then Mayor, and he was working to secure 'this territory for tho Corporation. However, he went out of office at a critical time, and was succeeded by Mr. Moorehouse, member for Lyttelton. Tho influences which were working in the city's interests then failed ,to -keep this titbit out of tho clutches of tho General Government.' BY-AND-BYE. If a young man left Wellington today, and returned in twenty-five years ho would hardly Recognise tho city which would call for his admiration. The rugged sky-line which assaults tho eye .in all . the principal streets would grieve him no more. At present tha great semi-circlo of Lambtou-quay sug- ' gests a huge jawbono, with here and there a sound handsome molar adjacent to a painful gap or a very ugly stump. Other streets are in similar plight. The sublimo and the ridiculous are cheok by jowl here, almost everywhere; just as they aro in the other young cities of New Zealand. As far as city archilecture goes, not one is much moro beautiful or moro ugly than another. Ho may find too— it is humbly prayed — that stucco will not be so 'devoutly worshipped as it is to-day, and that his eyo will not be saddened by a dreary soul-numbing succession of din"-y grey and ashen walls. . °" _ Te Aro Flat will be changed— again it is humbly prayed— from an eyesore to a bf&uty spot, and industry will smoke and roar in peace, on the Hats, natural and artificial, of Evans Bay. In short, tho city, which is now a fast-growing boy, still in knickerbockers, holey and partially patched, will be a young man in leepcctablo attire.

Tt seems, after all— according to tho Chiof Health Officer (Dr. Mason)— that the Maori is to revolutionise the pakeha. v While ho was travelling recently between Tol.tgo Bay and the East Coast, in the land of the Ngatiporau, Dr. Mason saw villages which, ho says, are an object lesson not only to other Maoris, but to the pakchas. The natives have burned their old whates, and have put up good, tip-to-date houses! "Loafing" is not popular j all the men cheerfully work. Thoy are taking 6uc-h an interest in sanitation th«& they have been otm ■«». ; rw.l.)v of 1 .their *>wr % " > .