ROADSIDE ADVERTISING

To The Editor Of The Statesman

SIR, – Until quite recently the immediate surroundings of Calcutta have been almost entirely free from the disfigurement of roadside advertising. I allude in particular to the type of hoarding which renders hideous the road approaches to most of our towns at Home. I noticed with regret that the few motorable roads round Calcutta are now beginning to be infested with this eyesore. In England a vigorous campaign is being conducted against this type of advertisement by the Royal Automobile Club – partly in inducing local authorities to exercise their powers of prohibiting such hoardings. I do not know what powers in this respect are possessed by Calcutta and the surrounding municipalities but possibly a ventilation of opinions on the subject in your columns might persuade those who adopt this form of publicity that its unpopularity defeats its purpose. For myself, to read in the advertising columns of The Statesman that certain types are the cheapest and run farthest is calculated to induce me at all events to inquire into their merits.

T.P.Y.

Calcutta.

PARK FOR NORTH CALCUTTA

To The Editor Of The Statesman

SIR, – It is now over a decade since proposals for opening a new park in the north of Calcutta have been on the anvil of the City Fathers and it is now nearly two years since a plot of land has been demarcated in Raja Dinendra Narayan Street, but nothing more has been done up till now. This part of the town – I mean from Bow Bazar Street northwards – is a thickly populated part of the city and the residents are in great need of open spaces at suitable intervals for health and recreation. The Corporation has laid out a few plots, quite small, here and there. They are neither big enough nor attractive and most of them are used by various athletic and sporting clubs. We need such places, no doubt, but need also places where children and old men can go and have a walk. It is high time that the City Fathers move in the matter.

A BHADRALOG.

Calcutta.

IMPROVEMENT TRUST & THE HOUSING QUESTION

To The Editor Of The Statesman

SIR, – At the meeting of the Calcutta Improvement Trust, Mr. Wyness is reported to have remarked that “the Trust had gone to work in the wrong way and that schemes in the suburbs should have been executed before the Central Avenue was constructed, as Government had remarked that the Trust had been remiss about the re-housing question.” Only a portion of Central Avenue has been completed and it has been found necessary to comment on the want of consideration shown by the Trust. Before the whole of the central portion of this avenue is taken in hand, it is to be hoped that the re-housing scheme will be a fait accompli and not just a scheme on paper. People living in this area are even now, thanks to the Trust, paying their landlords as much as 30 per cent over the rents paid four years ago.

DIOGENES.

Calcutta