Zeehan and Dundas Herald (Tas. : 1890 - 1922), Wednesday 13 January 1904, page 4


CORRESPONDENCE.

TO THE EDITOR.

[Correspondence invited, but we do not necessarily identify ourselves with tho i opinions of our correspondents.] j SHED LIGHT ON ODR DARKNESS.

Sih, — The residents, and those who have occasion to penetrate the inky, murky gloom suspended and held between those two tall hills like a widespreading pall, between earth and the heavens, which night after night etstllcs down when the sun retires for the while to leave it the mastery, makes us foci forcibly the pressing necessity of light along tho winding course of the Argent Tram. The immense hill running parallel with the tram casts a deep melancholy shadow upon the street below, of such density that youths with their excellent unimpaired sight can just see, and rather trust to their keen hearing and agility to avuid collisions than to the penetration of the black depths with their eyesight. The old, well 'tis purely guesswork ami good fortune that carry them through without serious mishap, though not without many knocks and bruises. It is quite a common experience to many to pass their houses for some distance and then discover their mistake and locate the situation by feeling the outlines of some fence, or peer helplessly into the black depths in vain for objects familiar. This is a deplorable, shameful, and inexcusable state permitted to exist by the Board. Were the quarter not so thickly peopled the inaction of the Board might be interpreted as due to the reason that tbe annual income derived from rateable property, etc., was inadequate to justify the cost they would incur by lighting the street in question with electricity (that is the annual cost). Bat the position is widely opposite to this. The returns brought in by rates to the Board yearly run into satisfactory figures, and their inattention consequently appears paradoxical in the extreme, when merely four little uncostly lights, attached to polls that now skirt the jpath, would remove our troubles by dispersing tbe spectral oppressive gloom that clothes the locality with a painful regularity.— Yours, etc., Zeehan, January 1. J.D.S.

STRAHAN POLICE. Sib,— There is a rumor current here that there are to be great changes in the Police Department. This involves that retrenchment is in the Zeehan air, and the removal of our worthy Superintendent from Strahan. If our resident were approached, I believe we should find he would rather stay; but a man in a Government position has not power to choose bis lot. Should official notice arrive, would some prominent buBinesB man with more able band than mine bring a petition forward to request the authorities to reconsider their decision, and leave our Superintendent here in the central town? There are many reasons we could bring forward in pressing this request. Trusting space may be granted in your widely circulated paper for this, and thanking you in anticipation.— Yours, etc., p.jj R Strahan, January Ji.

INCOME TAX. Sir,— The open-air meeting held last week, when some 300 citizens pledged themselves to passive resistence in re-gard to the tax which the Legislative Council demand shall be paid, has been the means of awakening the people. It is gratifying to see that we here, in Zeeban, in this case, as in many others, lead the way of passive resistance to the illegal and unjust demands of the dead house. The action of the member for George Town, Mr A. J. Jenson, in calling on the electors of his district not to pay the tax until every effort had been made to have it withdrawn, and in moving a vote of thanks, to those who called the meeting are worthy of commendation, we here must not fall back in our enthu-siasm on this matter. If we neglect to do our duty on this important occasion we shall assuredly suffer for it.

Your very able leader of to-day should be read and carefully studied by every man and woman in Zeehan, and I do hope that we will again meet to solemnly declare passive resistance. On that occa-sion, as in the past, my voice and all the energy I possess will be spent in the path of duty. Let us have a shaking among the dry bones in Hobart during the coming week. -- Yours, etc., R. J. WILKINSON. January 12.