MR ISITT'S COMING MEETING.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 71, 21 September 1896, Page 2

MR ISITT'S COMING MEETING.

To Mk W. G, Shearer. Sir,—l beg to acknowledge receipt of yonr letter of 18th instant, in wbich you enclose me two tickets for the Rev. Mr Isitt's meeting. This reverend and Christian minister having referred to the trade of an hotel liroprietor as " tbe dirtiest, tbe most disreputable, aud the most diabolical " ; having described tbe Rt. Hon. Mr Jos. Chamberlain, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, as a man " who never sold bis principles, because he never bad a principle to sell " ; having referred to the working men of New Zealand who are not teetotallers as " willing to sell their souls and therefore their votes for a glass of beer," and having gratuitously likened me to a cur, prohibits my accepting any favour from him or his following. Nor, for other reasons, let me add, am I likely to accept what assumes to be a favour from such a source. A boa constrictor salivas bis victim before swallowing him. If the victim escapes tbe preliminary saliva he might also escape tbe swallowing. I feel, indeed, that it would be most unseemly on my part if I did not recognise iv tbe most ample terms tbe compliment that you (perhaps unconsciously) pay me, for on your tickets Mr Isitt's name is written in tbe weeest of letters, while my own occupies in the largest possible type tbe place of prominence. In fact the words "Mr BagaaU " and " Drill Hall " stand out in such relief that I fear some mistake may occur, and it may be assumed in some quarters that circumstances have rendered it necessary for me to deliver another lecture. The tickets you seat me are Nos. 67 and 68, and I am not surprised that your party find it necessary to resort to the mean and cowardly device of protecting their meeting from public indignation by a ticket issue, but I must take this opportunity of {lointiug out that a meeting at wbich friends are admitted by complimentary tickets, while the outside public have to pay, is not in auy sense of tbg word a public one. I am fuliy willing to admit that including men, women, and children in Feilding and surrounding districts, your party may possibly number 200 or 250 individuals, and that they would all come and pass any resolution proposed to them, So, to bring Mr Isitt all the way from New Plymouth to prove what everybody knows, must indeed seem a feeble business. 1 return you one of the tickets, the other, as a collector of curios, I retain, which accept my assurance, I value at more than one shilling, and therefore will not use for the purpose for wbich it waa sent me. Your Obedient Servant, James J. Baqnall. Feilding, September 20th, 1896.