OUR CITY FOR THE SUMMER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 79

OUR CITY FOR THE SUMMER.

(For the Witness.)

By Constance Clyde. Someone lately controverted the statement that if you see one colonial city you see all; and certainly one is more inclined to agree with the New Zealand poet who gave each of the four cities a verse apart and a different “reading.” Christchurch has been called the City of the Plains; but. surely it might be called the City of Water; —not only the willow-fringed river, but its tributaries haunting the environs, then the great basin near the Clock Tower, cooling the fevered centre of the town, not to speak of the gutters flushing with artpsiau water so clean and refreshing in appearance that one is not surprised that an alien was seen washing his fish in them under the impression that they were provided by a careful Government for that purpose. Christchurch is decidedly our summer city, being free of the exhausting hills in Dunedin, which is otherwise slightly cooler. Madame Nordica combats the tradition that ■ Christchurch resembles an English city. It has a character quite its own, she says, and does not remind her of Home. Yet Christchurch, if not English, is certainly at least not Scotch, for it possesses no free library. There is_ a free newspaper room in the subscription library, where the magazines and books, even a glance at encyclopaedias and reference books, must be paid for. Ladies shopping must feel the need of a rest room, where they can sit over a magazine during the heat of the day, and it is to be hoped one of the larger drapery firms "will try this in place of the tea room which some possess. This will suit such ladies as do not join the Ladies' Club, just opened, which was begun by Miss Jeesie Mackay and others. Talking of women s clubs, in Christchurch the Young Women’s Christian Association will soon rank as one where news of the world may be obtained. People who regard this institution, from the old Sunday at Home standpoint, as a place where rather forlorn persons are sheltered must reconsider their ideas of it. A friend who stayed there two nights gave a bright description of it as a place where yon meet educated end superior women, some of whom have worked in the London East End, and are well up in the various industrial legislation that has been passed of late years. A celebrity of another kind has been boarding at this institution — Lady Lipton,—insistent on having her title recognised even at that democratic board. For a holiday-mrker Christchurch has many advantages. Sumner and the Cashmere Hills, the Gardens and Wainoni Park, and New Brighton cater for popular tastes —all open on Sunday, all recognising the right to bo harmlessly thirsty on that day. The decker t r ams also make the trip outward a pastime, though much complaint is made regarding the “trailers” —a name given to the second and third cars that are fastened to the first, and are soon thick in dust —and the enclosing walls of these “trailers” seem to give no protection when a motor car passes. For a resident Christchurch has its disadvantages. There is a tendency towards officialdom, as when the council commanded every householder to buv a regulated dust bin costing 6s 6d. This preventive of the smallpox aroused some indignation among the smaller householders; but a silver lining has appeared in the cloud under the stimulating idea that it “ can be used for something else.” and it is surmised that the kerosene tins of their fathers will soon be emptied into the cart as before, while the stately zinc affair leads a purdah existence inside as a food chest or a butter cooler! Another trouble is that in some places near the town the morning mail does not come to some people till il o'clock or later. The morning mail, in fact, does not come till it is within apprecial le time of being an afternoon mail. “ Once we got our letters with our breakfast,” said one complainant to the papers, “ now we get them when it’s much nearer lunch.” To our surprise we learn that Christchurch is not so well laid out as it is claimed to be. It has followed the wrong model, says one who seems to know, and for this season, he alleges, the majority of gardens do not get sufficient sunshine. The main streets should have been laid out in quite another direction. It seems to us. after the straight, long streets cf Dunedin, that these Christchurch streets have put themselves in as many directions as they can ; but experts ought to know. However, the wrongly laicf-ont streets have everywhere Hale telephone boxes, and therein I think Dunedin might profit by example.