To the Editor.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 645, 19 September 1882, Page 2

To the Editor.

Sin,—So lam advised not to play with edge tools. Don >tless. hid i been aware of a tool of such formilable cutting capacity as your correspondent of the Bth inst., I should have hesitate! besore h zirding an opinion v >on any public matter whatever. Unquestionably he is a dangerous tool to play with, and his opinion of himself is commensurate with his ability.

'• Comeitud fool ! Nature eyes thee askance, and inarvelß What art thou.',

He. is either ashamed of his name or the position he takes v >;- therefore, to prevent mistakes, and as it i< necessary to have a distinguishing mark, I shall call him Mr Toady in lieu of a better, as be has evidently some sinister design on the patronage of the Council. Well. Mr Toady is. I suspect, scarcely old enough to go alone, and has been prematurely turned adrift from the shelter of the maternal wing when bis moral perceptions were in a dazed condition r he

" Lies like truth, And stil more tru'y lies;"

for when ho undertake-) to enter on particulars, his veraity fails him. This doughty reviewer m ikes reckless assertions, and calls falsehoods criticism. He appears to be riled mightily that any one should be so presumptuous as to say anything depreciatory in relation to the object of his adoration.

I am not aware that any one objects' to the.chairman ot the Council being a J.P.; certainly not ; and if the public service can be shown to be benefited thereby, then make all tbe members J.P.s, by all means, and Toady crier of the court. They are all good men and true individually, but their position as a half-fledged council is a costly mistake, and it ought either to be closed as regards this county, or put in full forco ; but I contend that contralism in any form is objectionable with regard to local matters, and the arrangement of tbe candle and sticks is in this case re versed. Then Mr T. uses the expression "slanging match." There is a strong suspicion of tbe larrikin element about this word, and curious people would probably like to know where T. picked it up. Undou tedly it is an extract from the vocabulary of foot pads, burglars, or people who would not stick at firing hotels, etc., and I advise T. to remain incognito. At the meeting referred to at Little River, there were only two who voted for referring the matter in hand to the Council, while all the rest, including a member of the Council, voted to submit the question to the Road Board, on the principle probably that of two evils choose the least. Further on MrT. compares salaries, but omits to compare the work done in each case. But it is scarcely worthy while to follow an epistle where prevarication appears to be a virtue. His onslaught on tbe Road Boards in the County is rather startling, seeing that the Coiincil.is composed mostly of past or present members of those boards. His anxiety to win the admiration of his clients has here led him

into committing an indiscretion, and he will have to make the amende honorable I have never heard that any public body was declared competent; such a phenomenon would be a vara avis.- No doubt had Mr Toady the management of Borne of them be would put them straight. As tbe bills, about which there has been Rome speculation, have become, or are about to become law, we shall no doubt be governed well in future. I shall therefore vacate the premises and leave the field in possession of my facetious friend, hoping to meet him at some future time on some- question fraught with mighty interests, when I hope he will come forth in less questionable shape. A word of advice Mr Toady before we part. When you feel a vacuum in that part of your superstructure, called by anatomists the cerebrum, don't you come for to go, for to take and turn too, and try to fill in tbe vacancy by filching another's doggerel, and palm it off on an innocent and confiding public as original. Were tlie author of those lines you have appropriated to appear again on earth, I doubt not there would be what you term in your classic idiom a " slanging match," when he found out tbe use you made of his property. Thanke Mr Editor for space granted and occupied.—Yours, etc., J. WILSON.