And a tumble-down Town Hall
That brings forth the wondering pity
Of casual folks who call.
There are rubbish carts that clatter
Each day on the crowded street
With festering noisome matter
By places where people eat.
But the Council was far too busy
To thunder at things like these
With logic that makes men dizzy
It decided to slaughter trees ! The slum of the future rises
In the guise of a dingy fiat
But the city which culture prize.
ls calm over things like that.
There are dumps for the rats and 'roaches
And in places where children play
And the rack-renting hoard encroaches
On many new fronts to-day,
But what though the toiler grumbles
At things which the eye displease
There's urgent work for some bumbles
In cutting down stately trees ! The things the Almighty Planner
Took years to perfect in pride
Are threatened in shameful manner
'Mid the peace of the riverside.
The lure of the leafy shelter.
The poise of the branches slim
Are lost in the helter skelter
That follows a civic whim.
Must the magic of moonlit hours
And the song of the fragrant breeze
Be slain by some petty powers
In the souls of the slaughtered trees ! -THE HOBO. Notes From the Western Australian Newspaper The Sunday Times 19 Feb 1939 p. 23.