THE DUNEDIN ATHENÆUM.

Evening Star, Issue 3655, 9 November 1874, Page 2

THE DUNEDIN ATHENÆUM.

To the Editor y°»r i'l’tic e cf Saturday last you P'ljiiivvlv' assert d that the opening of the ■•tiemenm reading room upon Sunday afterr ins has pr>ved not a failure hut a very •atai.-ccess vow, fir, as one 0 f those V -1 oppos d that opening an d whom you cmLenge to deny that the reading-room is a by numbers gre ter than oa the weekdry, c emphatically assert, upon the tescimony of my own eyes, that your assertion w—to use your own words respecting Mr Backhouse “ab olutely false in every suisc. I might even go so far, upon your ovvn authority, as to say that the miscreant wn.. se >t you th s piece of information, whoever ae may be, is deserving of public exposure, and of the scorn of all truth-telling m i.. .Sir, what is -he result of the opening ot the Uheuajum on the Sabbath ? Simply a f ew individuals, who belong to no sect of thy bnstian Church, r> quent the new -ro .m by way of bravado on a Sabbath stt-.raoou. 1 have on successive oecas'ons gone and glanced in at the rea ling-room ami tnuud a few persons, varying in number imm Seven to fifteen, scattered over the ha 1, is par ncly collecting the weekly gossip of :ho newspapers shere never were assem!,lecl on Sabbath in that room two dozen persons. And this is what you choose to call “a very great success.” Mr Back•ou>:e is a s ,ranger to me and to Dunedin’s doings; but in this particular be happens to be historical y correct. I neither know, nor care to know, who supplied mm with information; but that information, 1 repeat, is absolutely true. I ebahe -ge you or any ether man to prove, p stable testimony, that the o euiug ot the Atuenaeuru has been “a very great success. ill honest men—“ whatever their opinions may be upon the advantages of an open Athenaeum on Sunday”—love and reverence the truth as the bond of society. I am, &c., J .. _. J. G. S. Grant. Dunedin, November 9,