CORRESPONDENCE.

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 76, 9 December 1884, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE LATE FLOWER SHOW.

TO THB EDITOR OF THB STAB. Sib, — As your sub- leader which appearcd on this subject in Saturday's Stab is somewhat calculated to mislead the general public. I shall be glad if you will grant me space to reply to some of the charges made therein against the Com-» mittee. In the first place, yon blame the Commiitee for the erroneous report of the show which appeared in your paper, owing, as you say, to your reporter being excluded from the hall while the judging took place. Now, sir, it is a fact whieh you could easily have ascertained, that your reporter was admitted fully ten minutes previous to the commencement, of the judging, and he was present irom that time till the public were admiried^, therefore it is needless to comment upon' your crushing remarks as to the unprecedented conduct and crass ignorance of what you please to term a self-cejutitutei authority (although snch authority wat duly appointed by the Seciety), in so excluding him. Moreover, I may state that I informed yonr reporter that if he would send me a proof of his report I would examine it and correct if necessary, which he did not think fit to do, or the numerous errors would not have appeared in your report. In the second place, with reference to excluding one of the Presidents, I may inform you that the gentleman in question was Chairman of the Committee meeting when the resolution was passed " That no person be admitted into the building on the morning of the show on any pretence, except the working or staging Committee," and I must differ with you in your opinion that the presidents of the Society are ex officio members of such a Committee. There may be something to be said both for and against the rule of non-admission, but that is beside the question, and T fail to see, such a rule being in force, that you or any other person have any just cause of complaint against the Committee for strictlj carryiug out the rules of the Society. As to the latter part of yonr article charging the Committee with grossly insulting some of the exhibitors, I can only say that in my capacity as Secretary I was in the hall nearly the whole of the day, and neither heard or- saw anything of such an ocomrence. — I am, &e~> Edmund Goddbbhrbr, Hon. Sec. Manchester Horticultural Society. [We have pleasure in publishing Mr Goodbehere's letter in which be comments on our article, re the Horticultural Committee. Mr Goodbehere's remarks anent the inaccuracies in our report are besides the question, but his admission proves that he was aware our reporter had not been enabled to make accurate notes, aud we may therefore assume that his complaints to us had some good foundation. Mr Goodbehere should know that Presidents and Vice-Presidents ofall institutions are members of all committees ex officio, and the resolutions referred to could only be intended to apply to all other person* than those who were legally entitled to have entrance to all committees, so that the point of the Vice-President having presided at the meeting when the resolution was passrd goes for nothing. It is not likely he would be desirous of excluding his superior, the President of the Society and himself, from any meeting where his presence might be urgently required — as was evidently the case at the last show. We only regret that our information as to the offence given to several persons is only too true, and has been amply borne out by statements from independent parties. — Ed. F.S.]