Correspondence.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1019, 28 October 1881, Page 3

Correspondence.

We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents, A LADY’S VOICE FROM BLACKS. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —ln. the columns of your contempory appears a communication giving an account of the Blacks district, speaking in high terms of our local medico, every word of which I endorse. He is not only a very good doctor and a jolly good fellow, but something more, as he seems to have infused new life into our lethargic community —“ As there is a rattling of the dry hones in the wilderness.” If he intends, as the writer hints, to remain a bachelor, there will be mourning in Bamoth-Gilead, as a doleful complaint was made at the last concert by a company of amateur darkies, that ho had already stolen the hearts of the maidens of Ophir. But something must be said, 1 think, for our now domino, who is instituting a new order ol things, although it will be some time before bo can effect much good, as he found the school in a deplorable state. The best scholar there, according to the teacher’s account, could not pass successfully a second class standard, but he is not sufficiently supported. Could not the doctor give the School Committee an electric shock and galvanise them into new life, as there are about 30 children on the West side of the Manuherikia River only a few of whom attend school. Some of them are a distance of two or three miles from the school, but if ihe Committee put the compulsory clause in force, it would reach some of them, and might shame others into attending. It is a pity, now that tlure is an excellent teacher, and the state pays the fees, that there should bo a child in the district unable to read and write.—l am, etc., M ATERF AMELIAS. Ophir, Oct. 24, ISSI.