The Hastings Standard Published Every Evening. FRIDAY, JAN. 18, 1901. THE GOSSIP'S DIARY.

Hastings Standard, Volume V, Issue 1427, 18 January 1901, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Every Evening. FRIDAY, JAN. 18, 1901. THE GOSSIP'S DIARY.

The Christchurch City Councillors are exhibiting commendable unselfishness in regard to the rubbish destructor which is to be erected somewhere within the municipality. The honor of having the necessary structure placed in any particular ward is generously, though vigorously, declined by the representatives of the respective localities, and such is the spirit of good-nature animating the Councillors that the discussion has resolved itself into a species of civil war in which each City Father endeavors to foist the distinction upon some unwilling quarter of the metropolis as far as possible from his own charge. Euch was the nature of the debate that one member, after stating that the question was a burning one, remarked that more warmth had been displayed over it than would ever be generated in the destructor's furnace. It is generally admitted that an apparatus of this kind is required, but none are inclined to endure the busy " hum " consequent upon its untiring operations, for it is distinctly one of those concerns which would make its presence known over a considerable area. It has also been discovered that the smoke, and a certain kind of sediment arising from the destructor, will be injurious to various trades in the vicinity, special mention being made of the fact that it was impossible to make good beer where such operations of dissolution were being carried on. In these circumstances the members of the northern wards were anxious that the honor should be conferred upon the south, while the representatives of the latter, not less generous than their colleagues, considered that the interests of the City of Christchurch would best be served by fitting up the equipment on some northern site.

We can readily understand that the residents within measurable distance of the machinery will not have an unmixed blessing; in the destructor, for besides the clouds of smoke arising from all sorts and conditions of garbage in the course of demolition, the steady traffic of rubbish carts laden with their mysterious and questionable fuel will cause no small amount of disturbance to the olfactory senses of those who are situated on the weather side. With our new-found ideas of sanitation has come the conviction that a rubbish destructor is necessary, and though the cure partakes somewhat of the nature of a nauseous bolus we shall have to make the best of it in the interests of our physical welfare. It is quite certain that in this colony where we have been wont to pride ourselves upon our progressive ideas we have been carelessly harboring the germs of disease —a state of things which might have gone on for all time bad not tjje bubonic plague threatened to insinuate itself by reason of the congenial held which New Zealand offered for its operations. The process of cleaning up involved also the necessity for destroying that which had been dragged from the darkened coders of the various citips and towns ana toe health authorities agree that on the destructer mainly depend our hopes ot warding oil horrible pestilences* It la

only in the nature of things that objection should be raised to having the apparatus erected within sight of one's own premises, but this is after all merely a detail, for in our anxiety for the health of the community we would vote strongly for having a destructor, even if it had to be set up at someone else's front gate. Men are in all things unselfish, and when the question of the Christchurch destructor has been finally settled we shall expect certain of the Councillors and people of the Cathedral City still to consider that it might have been more appropriately placed.