CITY NUISANCES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4409, 31 December 1875, Page 3

CITY NUISANCES.

To the Editor of the Heraid. Sip.;— There is no citizen who more heartilyapproved of the action taken the other day by the City Council against Mr. Greenway than I did myself. I hold it to be perfectlymonstrous that any member of the community should be allowed to deal deaiih and destructiou around him without being subjected to the penalties which the law imposes; and, while it is the duty of every man to do what in him lies in carrying out the sanitary laws in force for the benefit of the whole community, it especially hvliuves the City Couucil to set a good example, and, while prosecuting others, to see that itself is not chargeable with infraction of the laws it makes. The earth-closet system has been introduced, • but not carried out, and the present plan of emptying boxes in which no earth is used is ten times worse than the old cesspit. My attention was drawn the other day to the public closets adjoining the Market-house, and of all the abominable coi.'rivances for the propagation of disease they beat everything. Here are some halfdozen boxes of reeking fiJth, surrounded by swarms of flies, and all within a few yards of stalls let by the City Council for the sale of meat, dairy-produce, fruit, and vegetables. No attempt is made to deodorise by earth, or anything else, but there they are, day after day, spreading pestilential odours in a neighbourhood which should bo the pattern of cleanliness. It appears that the Council is quite incompetent to deal with the hubjecfc, and yet, 6trange to say, it refuses to listen to the suggestions of an old resident who is willing to devote a great deal of time to the carrying out of a plan by which the nuisances may be very greatly abated. I allude to the propositions of Mr. Strange. I think his plan worth a trial, and it might be tested in one portion of the city without any great expense, and, if found practicable, it could then be extended. The £2000 now being squandered in i I ob-on-street would, I think, have been | more profitably spent in saving the lives of the comirunity than in breaking up a good street for the sake of appearances.—X j am, &c., Sanitas.