THAT INFALLIBLE STONE WALL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8629, 27 July 1891, Page 3

THAT INFALLIBLE STONE WALL.

■ TO ; the EDITOR. g -J. Sir,—His Worship the Mayor and borough councillors of Parnell, aided by their ener- l; ! getic foreman of works, have discovered "an ;'-, infallible stone wall." The same is of rough rubble, innocent of mortar, and is of ex- 1 tremely ancient lineage. , It matters not how, rough and kinked and bulged it is, this in- ;' ; fallible stone wall is the • councillors' beats: , ideal of a straight line. Unfortunately, the ' bulges and kinks of the wall ;do not project! t half so far into the roadway as the corns and • bunions on the feet of the gay and grey-headed councillors, and dire fate has lately led poor me to tread on these same metaphorical fool, excrescences. _ Having a leaning with the , rest of mankind towards claiming my own, • and also being fond of seeing a. neat alignment of a street, and finding, from months of ;' ; waiting, a reply to my letter that the borough ' J councillors were pursuing a policy of master! v • j inactivity in reference to my frontage, I started the opposite policy, and last Monday, with masterly activity, moved my fence out*%:l to the line or the survey pegs. This action was the immediate cause of a full-dress parade of the Road Committee, who, ac- • companied by Mr. Baber, • their surveyor, ftp? their foreman of works, and their turncock, assembled on Thursday afternoon to pay their devoirs to their beloved and infallible stone wall. In Indian file, and with slow and measured step, they traversed " the infallible" from end to end, gazing the while with reverent eye on their fetish. Their excess of devotion appears to have prevented their observing: the numerous evidences which the said ii£jfe wall itself gives of having in many places been, * razed to the ground and rebuilt by the ready, . if unskilled, hands of the lads at the Maori ;■ school; or" the numerous bulges . caused by large trees growing close to the structure. No, Sir, this stone wall is infallible, and the survey plans, ancient and modern, of th« 5 1§ road, and the survey pesrs, mostly ancient, on the opposite side of the road, which mutely give evidence that; the hoary old wall is an impostor, are alike unable to shake the confi- - : dence of the Parnell Borough Councillors in their infallible stone One would have thought that Mr. Baber, " as a surveyor, would ; have some reverence for a straight line, a survey plan, and a survey peg, which would have prevented hia giving his advice to the Borough Councillors M " to pull up my fence and chuck it into" my garden." It is, at any rate, to be hoped thai Ml the Parnell Councillors, though they forgot ~ on Thursday to extend to me the courtesy ol I knocking at my door and inviting me to join them and explain my position, will not be guided by Mr. Baber's puerile advice and so r ,>< cause the Borough to become a laughingstock for the public, as did the Borough of Devonport some few months ago in a parallel fiM case. In one word, if the Parnell Borough '' Councillors are still determined to ignore the rights of property and the proofs of ownership as indicated by survey plans and pegs, let them take their legal remedy at law and , stick to their " infallible stone wall."—l am, , etc., , A. Tempest, Gladstone Road.