"PATERFAMILIAS'" VIEW OF THE DOMAIN QUESTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 5918, 4 November 1880, Page 6

"PATERFAMILIAS'" VIEW OF THE DOMAIN QUESTION.

TO THK EDITOR. Sir, —I trust the public will not let the evening paper pull the wool over their eyes in the matter of the Domain pinning (?). That paper, in an article in its issue of yesterday, tries hard to lead the discussion off into maudlin sympathy for the poor, unfriended, and ill-treated Ranger, quite ignoring the real question at issue. That such pleas for the Hanger would be successful with some people may be seen from the correspondence columns of the same issue, in which one writer puts forth a plea for the " poor circus," because the residents object to have wild beasts howling, larrikins tearing, and stink and dust abounding right iu their midst. Another writer puts forth another plea for the " drunkard's poor wife and innocent children," as if there were no such things as "poor husbands" with drunken wives, who make their homes desolate, and miniature hells on earth to their families. And yet another puts forth a plea for "poor Joe," the wretched savage, who, without provocation, killed ail innocent man, and tried his best to kill half-a-dozen more, this writer placing him iu the light of a poor, unfriended, helpless creature, sentenced to death merely because he did not employ a lawyer to prove that he was quite justified in slaughtering a few of us ; and would have done better, if he had killed a few more. " Poor Goldie "ison a par with the rest. "Well, re the Domain, I would like those who deal in this kind of stuff to understand that the public do not blame Goldie. That matter is set at rest by the author of the mischief, -Sir. Mitford himself, who has come forth, and under his own hand, in the columns of the Press, told us that he alone is responsible, and he alone authorised and ordered the slaughter of the arborescent innocents. Now, I don't care two snaps about this, that, or t'other, but as a paterfamilias, I would have greatly preferred to enjoy the woodland beauty of the Domain, with my wife, family, and friends in my own time. The so-called scientific pruning may perhaps produce fine trees, a generation or two heuce ; but I would ivish to enjoy the Domain during my own life and the lives of my family ; ergo, I protest against having to put up with bare plantations, and mop-stick oaks, that future generations may possibly enjoy scientific trees. Better remove all the oaks and plant afresh, and in 10 years the mischief will be repaired.—l am, &e., Paterfamilias.