THE REV. JOHN CHRISTIE AND THE LIQUOR TRADE.

Evening Star, Issue 3893, 16 August 1875, Page 3

THE REV. JOHN CHRISTIE AND THE LIQUOR TRADE.

To the Editor. B^or * notice in Saturday’s Star of the leraperauce Hall anniversary affords an apt illustration of the manner in which a speaker may be misinterpreted when, a single clause is extracted from his speech without any of the context which went to give significance to he words quoted. You report Mr Christie as having said— ‘ He looked upon all vendors of intoxicating liquors as a standing insult to ! the community, and stigmatised all those em>. nected with the vending of such articles as ‘fiends and snekking too’ s of tho <ieTl ,S ’ 5S ehrisliocloubtlCM 4ed the Ini” quoted in this extract, but W>t in the sense riven in your local In the first place he said” the licensed liquor trade 1 not the “ vendors of liquor, was an insult to the comnumity; and then ho did not stigmatise all those connected with the vending of liquor as represented above, but said, _lf a man looked him in the face and smiled benignly on him, and then offered drink to his wife, or tempted his sons to. drink, or polluted his daughters, he would regard that man as little leas than a ‘fiend and a sneaking tool of the devil.’” I do not vouch for these being the precise words U“ e; ‘ b 7 the speaker, as I now write from , memory,-but they are very nearly the ipsissima verbs,: they are the exact sense and connection in which the words quoted were used, and as every one will see, bear a very different application to that given them by your reporter, 1 say nothing of the good taste or applicability of the language employed by Mr Christie, but think it is only right that he should be correctly reported.—T am, &c., „ • Due Who Was There. Dunedin, August 16.