ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 777, 9 March 1877, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

[We do not hold ourselves responsible for opinions expressed hi/ correspondents.] —o— A REPLY. (TO THE EDITOR OF THE DUNSTAK TIMES.) Sir :—ln your issue of the 2nd instant appears a letter headed “Mr Pyko to the Cromwell Argus,” and signed by Vincent Pyke, in which the following paragraph appears— (Again, Mr Starkey talked of my throwing over the Nevis Constituency. No one knows better than Mr Starkey that before accepting the Kawarau requisition I waited till the last moment fur a requisition from the Nevis, which never came. He knows also that it was made a condition that I should personally visit the Nevis, and that I was much too ill to do so). Now Sir I oanp.ot help thinking that nature must have endowed Mr Pyke with a very convenient memory. He havingliad the audacity to charge me with tolling a falsehood, it becomes necessary for me to state a few facts which Mr Pyke appears to have forgotten respecting the “ throwing over ”of the Nevis Constituency. The first is. That on his way from Dunedin to (as he led us to believe) accept the offer contained in the (Telegram was welcome as flowers ir. May) he signed a Nomination paper for another Riding and loft it with a gentleman well known in the district. Secondly,—That on the night a r ter he held his meeting at the Bannockburn, when he induced the Electors to pass a Vote of Confidence in him, a mistake which they have since taken every means to rectify, he said in the hearing of a few gentlemen of unimpeachable veracity, “ that bis political reputation would be ruined if it were known that he had '-te go to the Nevis, the extreme end of the County, to get a seat in the Council and then represent the most unimportant Riding in tho County.” The assertion—“that it was made a condition that I should personally visit the Nevis” he would find it a difficult matter to get any person to support. 11 The much too ill to do so ” business, he will have great difficulty in obtaining a Medical Certificate to prove, and it is a notorious fact that, within two hours of his receiving the news of his return for tho Kawarau Riding, unopposed, ho was out of bed and or his way to 'Clyde, In conclusion, Sir, I have to express a hope that when next Mr Tyke finds it necessary to justify his political conduct he will be good enough to leave me alone, as I have no wish to have my name connected with his in any matter whatever. Yours’, &c., George M. Starkey. Cromwell, March 7, 1577.