A HEARTLESS CASE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1521, 26 February 1886, Page 5

A HEARTLESS CASE.

(TO THE EDITOR OF LAKE WAKATIP MAII.)

[At last Friday's meeting of (he Southland Board of Education, the t'ardrona Committee's application for an addition to the residence was declined, and the Board expressed the opinion that a proper fumigation of the buildings would ahatf a nuisance complained of.—Wakatip Mail, 12th February, ISS6 ] Sir,—Referring to the above paragraph I will briefly observe, for the information of the public who may not lie acquainted with all the cruelties attached to the altove case and the inhumanity of the Hoard, that the teacher's residence at Cardrona has got only two rooms. One of these is 11 x 10ft., and in tlii* room the members of the Board expect a family of t«-n to live, cook, wash and eat; in it there is no stove, no oven, only three small bars of iron temporarily filed in to hold as much coal as one could put into his hat. The other apartment, designed for sleeping accommodation for a family of ten, is barely 7 xjft. Further, the teacher's residence and school-room are swarming with vermin, which are crawling over desks, forms, children's lx*>k«, mips, etc. In fact, it is not au unusual thing, esjiecially at dinner hour (in the warm part of the day), to see the teacher taking his meals outside. The place has been fumigated over and again with sulphur and washed with kerosene and all at the expense of the Committee—but to no purpose. Both establishments are very old, and the and lice are supposed to come from the decayed wood. It is really something hideous and loathsome to Jink of and write of educational matters up here. le teacher is compelled to keep his family and y rent for them in Queenstown. Slavery, penal servitude, sir, in their worst form are amenities compared with such savagery ; and yet the country vot«*s an oppressive amount of money yearly to maintain such wretchedness. The School Committee have done their part well, all but to pull down the buildings—l suppose they are leaving that to the public. I am quite certain, sir, that the members of the Education Board would not keep a sow and her litter of young ones iu a stye where a respectable teacher is expected to house a family of trn. Further comment is useless—the cruelties and wretchedness of the case are beyond description. And our very humane and aristocratic Board respectfully "decline" to cons.der this disgraceful itate of affairs—no doubt too disgraceful for their refined and elevated feelings. But I should like to see any of the members with their family leleguted to live in the stye or dog hutch in which they expect oue of their teachers with a family of ten to live in.—l am, etc.,

Humanity,

Cardrona, 23rd February, 1886.