CLAY, DUST AND MULES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 27, 25 February 1913, Page 7

CLAY, DUST AND MULES

ON WELLINGTON'S MOUNT COOK. RESIDENTS' COMPLAINTS. Wellington's Mount Cook is not a pleasure resort } one does not go there for Bomo of the world's best scenery. The sovt of landscape that pains the eye is thus described by "Patience" in a letter to Tho Post:-- • "For over, 26 years the long-suffering residents of Tasniau-street have been hopihg agaiflei hope that Something would be done with tho east side of Mount Cook. About eighteen years ago the brick wall ;was finished by prison labour, after they had been playing with it for some eight ov nine years. Then wo were ,tokl that ths unsightly bank tvoiild bo put in order and trees planted. The bank was filled up and greatly improved, but no trees have as yet appeared. Instead the bank has been disfigured again and made worse than ever in souift places. Great holes are visible in the bare batiks of clay, and to make things worse, the place is often crowded with horses and mules. As I writo I can tee fourteen there now, kicking and tumbling about in great glee. They grind the loose clay into a fine dust, which is lifted by eyety puff of wind—and we have some big puffs up this way —and smothers our houses in brown dust, so that we cannot keep the windows or curtains clean, not to speak of the unhealthy condition of the atmosphere that we and our children have, to breathe. I have been asked to call your attention to this ugly spot for some years, but had hoped that someone more able would do so. "Besides all this nuisance through the ignorance or indifference of the 'powers that be, We have been Waiting oh a footpath for about eighteen years. Ever since the great brick wall was finished on the west side of Tasman-street the ground along the side of this wall from the Police Station to Rugby-street has been in a disgraceful condition in winter, as all the drains behind the wall are blocked. No one seems to care. All the slush from the east side of Mount Cook runs over or through the Wall, making the place 'that ought to be a footpath a quagmire," and dangerous at night. Shall We have to endure this kind of thing for another quarter of a century?" A representative of The Post looked at the drab bank yesterday, and quickly saw that "Patience" had not overstated the Tasman-street grievance. "Buttressed ugliness" is a fair description of the eastern flank of Mount Cook. There dreariness and desolation sadden the eye. Dingy grass, the rusty brown of seeding docks, the.- gaps in the day and the rubbish are enough in combination to put a deep gloom into the soul, without dust from the frequent northerlies to make a top-dressing for the pessimism. Yesterday afternoon , water from the recent rains was ooaing through the walls, and the alleged footpath at the side (with no clear line of division from the roadway) was as bad as "Patience" has pictured it. About fifteen mules and foiir p? five horses were enjoying themselves in an enclosure at the front, bttt in the morning (a resident of Tasman-street remarked), they had been gambolling on the clay patch at the side. This portion of the hill was hacked for brickmaking purposes about eighteen months or two years ago. Mount Cook's flank was grievously wounded, and the wound was never dressed. Thus one of the most conspicuous pieces of high ground in the inner area of Greater Wellington has a gftol building as a monument, in a most depressing setting of unsightlifleas. Not long ago, before the arrival of the mules, which are not beautifiers, the front of the Mount Cook ground had a respectable appearance. This was in the days when the Weather Office had an observatory there. Since then ( beauty has fled, and the sceptre of ugliness stretches far on the heights.