PARK RAILINGS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21022, 10 May 1930, Page 6

PARK RAILINGS.

OPENING UP THE RESERVES. REMOVAL OF USELESS FENCES. During the past week or two passersby in the city and. in the suburbs have watched certain features of the sights of Dunedin uprooted under their very noses. Wherever they serve no useful purpose iron railings and paling fences are being ■ally removed from municipal reserves, which they have hedged in and enclosed for more years than most people can remember. A great many have already disappeared, and the most recently approved attack will be commenced on Monday when the Reserves Committee of the City Council will set about the clearing away of the iron fence that surrounds the Octagon reserve. The change has had such a beneficial effect on the general appearance of the garden reserves - that it will not be long before stern iconoclasts may bo seen going about regarding railings of all kinds with the eye of the woodman, demanding, “ Why do they cumber the ground?” ■ It cannot be denied - that the common reaction to this ruthless tearing up of. railings is much the same as Pope’s to flies in amber. We “ wonder how the devil they got there.” It is the same bewilderment that attacks the modern young woman ’ when si - asks how ever buttons got o- clothes” History always did play a game of skittles with invert tors. Our age spends its time eliminating the ingenious discoveries of its forefathers, and in the present case one can only be sorry for the man who invented buttonhooks. But the inventor of these railings is in a different case. The cool phrases of the old lover, of gardens, an enclosed pleasure; a joy that stranger*, cannot intermeddle with,” echo in these modem days in protection of beauty The inventor of railings is not entirely discredited. There is room for him at the Botanic Gardens, where he is to be allowed to replace the dusty, dingy holly hedge along King street with his Octa gon fence. The only trouble has been that some time in the dim past he was allowed too free a hand, in regard to Dunedin’s many small reserves in odd corners.

It may have been noticed that the Market Reserve, which ‘for so many years was cut off by an iron paling fence, is now open on all sides, and since its renovation is looking better than ever Mr D. Tannock (director of city reserves) stated yesterday that it had been better treated by the public since the railings were removed than ever it had been while it was enclosed. The fence has been re-erected along the King street frontage of the Gardens to excel lent effect, and similar obstructions in other corners of the city and suburbs have found their way fo the same place At present, it is proposed to take away only the railings enclosing the top section of the Octagon Reserve, which, by the way, will be just sufficient, to nplete the work at the Gardens. There is no doubt, however, that when the higher, portion is opened up the improvement will be so marked that the Reserves Committee will not he slow to remove the remainder of the present obstruction.