A DEAD JOURNALIST'S REPUTATION.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2538, 12 August 1915, Page 6

A DEAD JOURNALIST'S REPUTATION.

Sir, —In th 6 '''Triad," of August 10, " a copy of which I chanced to see yesterday, there is a paragraph doing a great injustice to the memory of a well-known New Zealand journalist, the late -Mr*" ' Andrew Spencc. As the paragraph - would have been libellous _ had Mr. Spence been alive, I think it is only, right that the earliest opportunity, should be taken of exposing its mis- . statements. , The writer, who signs himself "F.^1.,"-. under tlio guise of relating a typical instance of good-fellowship, describes how on, a certain occa-sim the late Mr. Spence lent him a helping hand. He proceeds; "Years later, 1 was enabled to repay him that good and brotherly deed in kind. Being on the staff of .• The Dominion in Wellington) he was sent out to the scene of - the. '• Penguin : , wreck to write a story of that dire and still unexplained event. He somehow got lost, had a terrible night' on th»( . bleak hills, and "reached py house" thn' next afternoon (it was a Sunday, I think), in a state of complete exhaustion. E ' gave him some whisky, he grunted out . a few details, and then rolled himself in a rug on my floor and went to sleep; Then I sat,down at my typewriter, and: drawing cheerfully on my imagination,-; wrote Andy's account of the Penguin' wreck, which readied liis office in time, ■ and duly appeared in The Dominion next morning." This statement, sir, I happen to know* to bo untrue. . In the' first place the . late Mr. Spence, who was assistant sub-editor of The Dominion at the time, ' was. not. sent out- to write a report of the Penguin wreck. All matters in connection with the recording of that ovent were attended to by other members of the staff. Mr. Spence, it -is true, of his own volition went to Tera- . whiti and sent in to his paper a deserip-. tive narrative, which he told me had been typewritten at his dictation bjj Mr.. Frank Morton, now, I understand, .'- associate-editor- <of the "Triad." I was . at that time editing a fortnightly periodical in Wellington, and Mr. Speilca offered .me the narrative, which: [The Dominion did not' use. I took the manuscript, published a portion of ify and, subsequently, at Mr. Spence's re* quest, paid Mr. Frank Morton for it; ■ No portion was 6ver published' W The Dominion ; and The Dominion's r« port of the wreck of the Penguin was not an imaginative account written 1)$ "F.M." and foisted on the public bjf the late Mr. Spence as fact in conse< quence of his own failuro to fulfil an • assignment. "F.M." speaks of the loy« alty of Mr. -Spence in liis friendships, and it is unfortunate that that loyalty, should prove to have been iso misplaced* -I am, etc., ■ A. N. FIELD. August 9, 191-5.