EDITORIALS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 878, 28 December 1888, Page 27

EDITORIALS.

Important Questions ■ .... — There are two municipal questions of somewhat pressing importance-—both affecting tho sanitary condition of the city—which ought to engage the early attention of the Uity Council. One of these is the lack of sufficient cemetery provision. The other is the need of adequate saltwater baths. The former was touched on by his Worship the Mayor in his inaugural speech, but the suggestion which he then offered only partially meets the necessities of the case. The latter point does not appear to have been referred to at all. Mr Duthie’s proposal with regard to the cemetery question was that a site should be secured on the Wellington and Manawatu Railway, and that the line should be extended to Newtown, so that mortuary trains might run from the southern end of the city to the new cemetery.' It has been suggested that this would not materially enhance the present cost of funerals. It may but we scarcely think it probable. The Company would have either to maintain a regular service of funeraltrains whether required or not, or else to run funeral “ specials ” whenever needed. In the former case (he trainß would often go empty, while in other instances several funerals would have to be conducted (simultaneously, which might often be exceedingly awkward for the clergy. On the other hand, if special trains were run as required, that would mean a heavy tax on those who bad to pay the funeral expenses, unless the rate fixed were very much below the usual charge for special trains. It is very possible that a cemetery site may not be obtainable at the Thorudon end of the city, excepting in a locality virtually accessible only by rail, but if so we fear it will mean a very substantial increase in funeral expenses. This will much more be the case if all the dead of the large population covering the area from the centre of the city to Newtown have to be conveyed by rail through the city and along the Manawatu line to some suburban cemetery situated to tho north-westward of Wellington. Nor does there seem to be any good reason why the bodies should be carried this long distance when there are some very suitable and convenient sites in the immediate vicinity which could probable be obtained for a moderate outlay. Why should all this extra distance be needlessly travelled by every funeral from To Aro and Newtown ? At the same time we fully recognise that from Thorndon to past Newtown would be an excessive distance. The obvious solution of the difficulty seems to be that two smaller cemeteries should be provided; one at each end of the city, instead of a single large one. There can be no doubt at all that two are required, and it would be far better to face that position now when land is comparatively cheap than to procrastinate for a year or two, by the end of which time the necessity cannot possibly have diminished, but land will almost certainly have become much more costly. We suppose tho popular and unreasoning prejudice against cremation is still too strong for that most reasonable and sanitary method of disposing of the dead to be adopted in Wellington. The more’s the pity, for that would obviate much of the preseut difficulty. We do not profess to un derstand how people can prefer leaving the mortal remains of those they have loved and lost to the loathsome courso of hideous corruption in preference to swift and inoffensive reduction to innocuous ashes in a crematorium. But so it seems * to be, and until the irrational prejudice shall have gradually died away which beyond all question will be the case in the future —it will continue necessary to permit the poisoning of the earth and water and the endangering of the public health by the continuation of the barbarous and insanitary process of interment. And in that case two cemeteries for this city are absolutely essential. On the otter sanitary necessity —adequate means of sea-water bathing—we have several times lately laid much stress. The summer has now set in, and the existing means are notoriously defective. The Thorndon baths, as we recently pointed out, are totally destroyed, and at present there is no sign of their being restored or replaced by new ones in a better situation. The To Aro baths appear now to be well conducted, and to be

maintained in good order, but they are, in our opinion, much too near a densely-populated part of the city, and we are not at all satisfied that they escape contamination from the various Te Aro sewers which discharge into the bay along its southern frontage. It iB true the Clyde-quay baths aro not close to these sewer outfalls, nor can it perhaps be proved that the current tabes its course in their direction, but still it stands to reason that the harbour waters all along the southern foreshore must be in some degree polluted with sewage. We do not see how it can be otherwise. Tho sewage runs into the harbour at no great distance from the baths, and there is a constant wash along the shore which mixes up the sewage and the sea-water very thoroughly. The mixture does not appear then to go right away into deep water, but seems to drift along the foreshore, and we question whether any thoroughly satisfactory bath site could be obtained nearer than the mouth of Evans Bay on the one hand and the northern extremity of the Manawatu Company’s reclamation on the other. The City Council will have to take up the matter in a vigorous and practical way. It is a scandal to such a place as Wellington, tho chief and central maritime city of the whole Colony, that ampl6 facilities should not be found for sea-bathing, especially as the natural features of the place are specially favourable. The present summer has of course been lost, but it will be discreditable to the Council if practical measures are not adopted in time for next summer. As lo tho precise course to be adopted—whether the establishment of city baths by the Couucil, or the arrangement for concessions to be accorded to a private Company, that is a question which needs careful consideration on the part of the Council. But that consideration should be prompt as well as careful, for the matter is one of pressing importance and has been neglected far too long - already.