PONSONBY DRAINAGE AND TAXATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6329, 1 March 1882, Page 3

PONSONBY DRAINAGE AND TAXATION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sik, —The question for the Ponsonby people to very seriously consider is, shall fever and other diseases make their permanent home in the district- through the want of a pure water supply and efficient drainage! The Highway Board has forbidden people to drain into the street. Hitherto this has been permitted, and certain streets were rapidly becoming fever beds. But the remedy may be worse than the disease. The filthy and inodorous liquid, if it lay festering under the hot sun in the unchannelled gutter, had no chance, or a very slight one, of contaminating the wells. But not so now. There are a number of houses «n small allotments. The refuse water must now be thrown on the small space of ground, or in a pit or cesspool. There is a welt not very many feet off considerably deeper. The ground is saturated with the foul liquid, and it will find its way, especially after rain, to the lower level of the well, and there will be the inevitable result—fever, disease, death, as certain as night follows day. Impure water, and especially water made impure by such a system as this, is the most fertile source of fevers and other diseases, especially among children and the weakly among adults. Here are two illustrations out of thousands that have occurred in the Old Country :—Out of 145 inhabitants of one place in England, 100 contracted fever within 152 months, and 17 died ; in another, with a population of 000, fully 300 persons were attacked with typhoid fever, for the most part within a period of two months, and 41 died ; killed hy water contaminated just as the water in Ponsonby, in ICarangahape, in Parnell, and in part of the city is still contaminated, and by want of proper drainage. A similar calamity would be looked upon as a very serious thing for any ot the districts named. Like causes produce like effects, Now, the Ponsonby people have all along been much more heavily taxed than districts paying the same amount per £, because the assessment is, and always has been, mucli higher than in the city or neighbouring highway districts. The city assessments are something like 20 per cent, below those of Ponsonby, and a shilling rate in Ponsonby is about equal to a fourteen or fifteen-penny rate in the city and elsewhere. Such heavy taxation ought to do more than pay salaries and make a few roads; it ought to pay

for a share of sewerage being done each year. It would appear from letters published, that if Ponsonby joined' the city, the only rate it would have to pay would be dhd in the £, except those who took the town's water, or lived within 100 yards of a water main ; for those who did not live within that distance would not have to pay any water rate. This being the case, with the lower city assessment, the rate would not be 9Jd on the present Ponsonby assessment, and with a chance, at least, of having all we have now, and some sewerage, and the chance also of the more populous parts of the district obtaining the city water on the same terms as the citizens. Joining the city or forming the district into a separate borough seems now an absolute necessity, the only real question is which is best for the district at large.—l am, &c, A Ponsonby Ratepayer.