MR CONNELL'S LITTLE PLAN

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 535, 23 March 1889, Page 3

MR CONNELL'S LITTLE PLAN

Mr Ailken Connell's cemetery scheme has been town talk during the past week. The proposal to establish a cemetery at Cox's Creek meets, as might have been expected, with the determined opposition of the long-suffering dwellers in the sweet-scented suburb. What with soapworks, and slaughter houses and boiling down establishments, dwellers at the creek have enough to bear in all conscience, as it is, without a cemetery. That will be about the last straw beneath which the camel, if forced to carry it, will succumb. * # # And the Cox's Creek people are not the only grumblers. Ponsonby is indignant, and the city itself looks with disfavour on the proposal. I am speaking generally, of course. Plere and there may be found a few people who, having no property at the creek or in its neighbourhood, and residing far away from its stinks, would not care a button if half a dozen cemeteries were started where Mr Connell is so anxious to locate his burial ground. * * * To Oo the original or of this schr-mo justice, lie plainly told the prople at the public meeting, called to consider ihe proposal, that it was simply ;i matter oi business thai lie had to lay before them, and he disclaimed any idea of setting up as a philanthropist. This was jur-t »s well. The proposal has such a decided flavour of £ s. d. about it that honesty was the best policy in approaching the public. Mr Connell did refer to the unsuitability of Waikomiti as a burial place, both on account of its bleak and wretched appearance and the trouble and expense involved in reaching it, but although he brought out these objections forcibly and well, it will take more than Mr Connell's eloquence, 1 think, to get Government to consent to any such scheme. And, indeed, if Government could be got to consent, the general public would be almost certain to object, and object very strongly indeed. * * * Mr Connell's scheme promises well, indeed, for him and the other inf crested parties, provided it only ' comes oft, hut the disinterested looker on who gives five minutes' reflection to the thing is forced to ask : ' What is the matter with Waikomiti ?' The objections to it urged by Mr Connell vanish directly they are analysed. The bleak and bare look of the Waikomiti Cemetery, time will remedy. Each year will make a difference in the appearance of the shrubs and trees planted about the graves. Within a very short time the bleak, bare look will have wholly disappeared. It would, indeed, be the most egregious folly if, after spending thousands of pounds in establishing a cemetery at a safe distance from town, we set up an opposition cemetery at an unsafe distance from town, and so sacrificed Waikomiti and endangered the health of the city residents, in order to benefit Mr Ait ken Connell ani his brother speculators. * • * All tlvo,t Waikomiti Cemetery needs to make it in every way suitable is a little time, so that the trfos and shrubs may grew, and frequent trains at cheap fares.