MAKING A ROAD ON THE TOWN BELT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 2049, 29 August 1868, Page 3

MAKING A ROAD ON THE TOWN BELT.

(To tlie Editor of tJte Otago Daily Times.)

Sib,—ln your paper of Thursday last there is an episode in the proceedings of the Council, in which lam concerned. I do not mean now to allude to, it, as the good sense of the majority voting, in coming to the conclusion they did, renders any remark from me unnecessary, with the following exception :—A Councillor is reported to have said, "A person in station of life, -who had been found cutting down a tree, would have been summoned."- Another Councillor is reported to have said- :"The Council, at its last meeting, resolved that a man should be summoned for catting down a tree—or removing a dead tree, rather; but Mr Bathgate had caused' 50 trees, probably, to be cut down." Any person ignorant of the circumstances and locality will be led to believe, from the language used, that I had been guilty of cutting down a tree, or 50 trees (more or less), the property of the public. I am naturally desirous that the misrepresentations, either direct or inferential, contained in the assertions quoted, should not go forth to your "readers at a distance without contradiction. The public here, and the Councillors themselves, doubtless, know, that there is not a tree within half-a-mile at least of the footpath in question ; and had your subscribers been confined to the inhabitants of Dunedin, 1 would have passed^ over* the unwarrantable statements made as undeserving of notice. For the information, however, of the public outside Dunedin, I beg to, say that, in/making the footpa'lis referred to, not one tree—not even » dead tree—was touched, or cut down, there being none near the spot. —I am. &c-j JoH>r Bathgate.