LIBELLING THE DEAD.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1835, 22 August 1913, Page 4

LIBELLING THE DEAD.

Sir,—A correspondent, styling himself "Justice," in last Thursday's issue,.anion'' other things publishes the statemont that tho late Mr. T. E. Taylor was."a powerful exponent of the necessity for a threefifths majority." As one who knew Mr. Taylor intimately for many years, I wish, ill fairness to his memory, to give this amazing statement an unqualified denial. I will go further, and say that "Justice" has been guilty of wilfully maligning a dead man; ami I challenge your correspondent to furnish the date, place, and occasion on which Mr. Taylor made tlio alleged statement. In being thus misrepresented, Mr. Taylor is not at all singular. The great Abraham Lincoln, though well known during his lifetimo as a Temperance reformer and Prohibitionist, is often claimed by the liquor trade as an antiProhibitionist; yet nothing could be further from tho truth. The only difference between Lincoln and Taylor is in tho matter of time. In the caso of Lincoln tho trado certainly had tho grace to wait twenty-two years after his death before publishing its wicked fabrication, but in Taylor's case tho maligner has got to work much more promptly, having allowed only two short years to elapse liefore beginning his .work of misrepresentation.—l am, ctc., FAIR PLAY, Wellington, August 19, 1913.