"BLENHEIM BLIGHT."

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 93, 26 April 1910, Page 3

"BLENHEIM BLIGHT."

TO THE BDITOE.

Sir, —It is quite amusing to see how the two candidates for the Mayoralty are walking round the bush. Are they afraid of losing some •of the fossils' votes that neither of them dares come out with a programme to tackle the many sores and evils that the town has been laboring under for years? Is there any other town in New Zealand of its siz© and age that is so backward in -everything that tends to the prosperity of its citizens? No drainage, no water, streets badly lighted—one in particular in the middle of the town, with no lamp from one end to the other—stagnant, stinking water lying in ditches not five minuteswalk from the Square, cows whose milk is sold to the public quenching their thirst with stagnant filthy water lying in the yard they are milked in, yelping curs making night hideous and sleep impossible, and not a tax collar on any of them* Again, our medicos have repeatedly drawn our attention to the disposal of nightsoil. In the street I live in, •out of all the houses there mine is the only one the cart calls at. Have we any inspectors at all? It seems not. Riders of bicycles are allowed to ride on the footpaths, and at night go without lights or bells, and for fear we should suffer from swelled iiead in the way of a little learning the Institute is opened only three times a Aveek with a few periodicals and magazines. As for the library, the less said the better. Then, again, as to our streets, through the foreman being allowed to experiment with the ratepayers' money at his own sweet will we had lately a quagmire at one end of the town and a moving bog at the other. Is any Borough Councillor game to ask for a return of the cost of the small section at the Criterion corner? In wages alone with the toy roller and the big horse it must have cost three times as much as it ought to have done. These are only a few items, Sir, but sufficient to show that until these are remedied it is no wonder that after people come here to settle down they speedily sell up and clear out rather than run the risk of diphtheria and typhoid fever. Most of these sores are talked about by Mr Penny and Mr White, but they have been talked about in the Council in their usual slipshod way and allowed to drop again for years. Now the removal of these sores, which are a disgrace to any town half our size, cannot be done without money, and I know that many of our fossils are quite content to let things slide as they hitherto have done; but this state of things cannot last. We must go in for a loan of say £60,000 to £80,000, and set our town in order. It is entirely our own fault that Blenheim is not carrying 10,000 inhabitants this day. Will Mr Penny or Mr White come forward with a definite programme to wipe away our "blight,'' heal our sores ,and make the town one of the best to live in, in all New Zealand ?

A RATEPAYER