THE ST. CLAIR BATHS.

Evening Star, Issue 9831, 21 October 1895, Page 4

THE ST. CLAIR BATHS.

TO THE EDITOR, Sir, —So the Ocean Beach Domain Board arc going to make a charge for using the St. Clair Baths. This is an encroachment on the rights of the public that should not be tolerated for a single day. Whatever statutory authority the Board may have for presuming to take such a step, it is contrary to the public iuterest that the only natural bathing place an the beach should be closed to that section of the community which suffers all and be made more select for that other section which enjoys all. If the Domain Board have any proprietary rights in the dressing rooms by all means let them charge (and as smartly as they like) for using them, but let them not attempt to drive away those who have an unquestionable right to enjoy a dip in the shelter of that cliff, but who may not be disposed to pay for it, or may not be in a position to do so as often as they would like, without causing privation at home. I warn the Domain Board that the eucroachinent will not be quietly acquiesced in. It is on a par with the administration of other of our public properties, aud is diametrically opposed to the spirit that is animating all wiser communities. Free public grounds, free libraries, free art galleries, free lectures, free churches, free bathing facilities are the cherished ideals of civilisation—to extend the advantages of knowledge and culture, cleanliness, and healthful exercise to those who need them most. The delight of our sapient authorities is just to deny these to all who can’t pay for them, or who have not acquired these tastes sufficiently to do so. Our educational endowments are being sold and frittered away. Attempts to steal bits of the Town Belt and other reserves are periodically made. The Athemeum is closed to those for whom its benefits were primarily intended, and now old citizens who have fallen upon poverty and evil times are peremptorily told to quit their old old-time bathing place and go into the surf and to the sharks that St. Clair mfty be beautified for the dandies who reside there.

I enclose a cheque for £1 Is as an earnest of the determination of myself, for one, to contest the point.—l am, etc., Phoenix. Dunedin, October 19.

[We hold our correspondent’s cheque for one guinea in aid of the proposed free baths defence fund.— Ed E.S.]