OUR STREETS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3567, 24 June 1872, Page 2

OUR STREETS.

TO THE EDITOIt OF THE LYXTELTOX TIMES. Sib, —It is well known that a majority of our City Councillors have for the past twelve months, or thereabouts, felt fully convinced that the minority of the Council has been conducting a costly and useless experiment which has resulted in utter failure.

I refer to the worthless character of the stone-crushing machine how in use by the Council;-the equally worthless character of the stone from Fisher’s quarry, and its utter unfitness for the purposes of macadamising streets, os has been very abundantly illustrated by the re-metalling lately done. The first experiment made with this stone was upon the southern end of Manchester street leading to the railway station, on which a heavy coating of rough stone was laid. Weeks were spent in carting and spreading this, and a somewhat longer time was spent by a man with a hammer in breaking on the street this supposed broken metal. The workman had scarcely left the street, when the stone had disappeared, every heavily laden cart which passed along the street reduced the rotten stone to powder, so much so, that you could easily track its wheel mark along the whole length of the newly metalled street, and but a very few weeks elapsed, till the supposed metal became a mass of mud. One would have thought that, to the City Surveyor at least, this would have been a sufficient indication of the utter worthlessness of the stone ; but no, the like experiments were lately again resumed opposite the bank of New. Zealand, and earned a little way up Colombo, street southward, and High street eastward, with a short length westward along Cashel street, from the Custom-house corner to the junction of Colombo street; and I would ask every observant citizen if the portions of these streets referred to were not in a very few days in a much more deplorable condition than before, this stone having almost instantly powdered down under the wheels of conveyances into a red volcanic mud, rendering the streets impassable with any degree of comfort and cleanliness. Now, let any one mark the following contrast Some three years ago—not weeks as in the previous case—High street, from the Custom-house comer to Barrett’s Hotel, a street which carries more heavy traffic than any other street in Christchurch, was dressed with a coating of Halswell metal, brought from the gaol reserve on the Lincoln road ; and soon, after, Cashel street westward to Oxford terrace, from the junction of Colombo street was similarly coated with the same metal ; whilst over four years ago Cashel street east from the Custom House comer to Cobb’s stables, had a first and only coat of Halswell metaL

Now anyone who will take the trouble to examine these portions of streets will find them comparatively clean, free from inequalities, with a much harder and less worn surface after three and four years’ wear than those portions of streets which have had a heavy dressing of rotten volcanic stone only a few weeks ago. If these matters are as I have stated them, I ask you, Sir, and the public, if it is right that the Surveyor and City Council should continue wasting the monies of the ratepayers in carrying on a costly experiment in defiance of strongly expressed public disapprobation, end or the most unmistakeable evidences of utter failure ; and that too in face of the fact, as one of the Councillors the other day admitted in my hearing, one load of Halswell metal was worth five from Fisher’s quarry. Notwithstanding the large expenditure which is daily going on, it will be admitted that the streets of Christchurch are in a worse condition now than they have been for many years, and will rapidly get still worse, unless the present inefficient Council are brought before a public meeting to account for this wholesale waste of public monies. Tour obedient servant, RATEPAYER.