R ROOTS IN REPLY TO THE REV. MR COCKER.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 37, 12 August 1896, Page 2

R ROOTS IN REPLY TO THE REV. MR COCKER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR. Sir, —l am sorry that my friend should have taken umbrage at my letter. He truly says that we are strangers save what acquaintance we have through the medium of your valuable paper. Before correcting his remarks I may say tnat I have no personal animosity either against Mr Cocker or other Prohibitionists. Some of them I esteem as good and would-be useful men in their day and generation were it not for the enslaving power of the monster Prohibition, through whose might they vainly hope to overcome the vice of alcoholic intemperance. Mr Cocker says tbat he discontinued the discussion on a former occasion because my statements were untrue, and that my remarks were impertinent and not to the point. Tbese two last assertions are so worthless that I shall pass them by as unworthy of notice. The one touching the veracity of my statements I shall reply to. To prove this assertion he says I had to withdraw one. I may say that lam noaware of having made any mis-state-ments, save one, and that by mistake, which was as follows—l substituted tbe name Kansas for Texas when showing in oue of my letters that the benefits claimed by my friends the Prohibitionists could not be real, inasmuch as the most shocking acts were perpetrated in the broad light of day in this State, said to be so markedly reformed by the Prohibition process. Immediately on discovering the mistake, though not through Mr Cocker or anyone else, not by pressure, as his statement implies, but purely of my own accord, I at once sent and corrected it. In fact, Mr Cocker was not aware of the mistake —it had quite escaped bis notice —until he reached tbe Star office with his reply to mine when, no doubt, he was shown my letter withdrawing the statement above mentioned. I regret exceedingly tbese remarks of my friend, inasmuch as it affords tbe clearest proof of the mighty power the demon Prohibition has over the minds of bis unhappy votaries when a man of his standing and profession should descend to the mean snbterfuge of charging an honorable antagonist with making false statements be had to retract when he knew that the statement in question was purely accidental and was voluntarily withdrawn rather than obtain even a triumph at the expense of truth. Men like Mr Cocker should be slow in throwing stones at their opponents after the Stale Bnn Easter Prohibition episode, in which not too much candour, not too much veracity, amd so little generosity was played. I am, etc., J. B. Roots.