AREA TO BE FENCED

Taranaki Daily News, 23 May 1934, Page 9

AREA TO BE FENCED

RESULT OF BOY’S DEATH.

SCHOOL COMMITTEE INVESTIGATES.

Deprecating statements that had, in its opinion, been made without full investigation, <he Central school committee at a special meeting yesterday decided to have fenced-in a heap of soil which had been ordered for top-dressing purposes. Tire decision was made as a result of the death from tetanus of Irwin Dick on Sunday night, for it was upon the heap that the boy received a cut on the leg while playing last Monday week. The contention that the boy’s death was due to tetanus germs in the heap of soil was strongly opposed by the school committee, members of which considered that until evidence that the germs were from the heap was irrefutable, they would not accept the statements made. The borough inspector, Mr. R. Day, will thoroughly investigate the problem during the coming school holidays and if it is found that the germs are contained in the soil, it will be removed at once. The place where the boy received his injury, Mr. F. A. Coleman, chairman of the school committee, told a Daily News reporter last night, was not on the “flat” at the school, but on a heap of soil from the section on which the Masonic temple is being built. The boy had been pushed over and had apparently received the cut. The soil had been there for topdressing, and though some had been spread, most of it was in the heap. There was no need for parents to become alarmed, said the chairman, for the heap would be fenced off immediately. During the holidays Mr. Day would help in the testing for the germs, and should it be found that germs were in the soil, it would be at once removed. Mr. Coleman pointed out the report that the soil came from an area formerly used as stables was liable to be misconstrued, for in his knowledge no stables had stood on the property in the last 25 to 30 years.