THE WIDOWS' AND ORPHANS' FUND.

Grey River Argus, Volume X, Issue 809, 1 March 1871, Page 2

THE WIDOWS' AND ORPHANS' FUND.

(to the editoe.) Sir— l am sorry to trouble you again with regard to this now notorious question of the balance-sheet of the above fund. It is very plain to be seen that neither the committee or their secretary have sufficient respect for themselves or the public to have the matter properly cle&red up. When I wrote my first letter to your columns I never expected this controversy would ensue, as my requests were made in a quiet reasonable way, and "were not difficult to comply with, or i decline, the latter of which might have been done in a very few words ; but instead of this the committee thought proper to concoct a mo3t violent effusion, quite foreign to the question at issue — viz., the balance-sheet and statement of funds in hand, and not the management of the fete — with a view of lowering me in public estimation, therefore they 3hould not feel surprised if they got a Roland for their Oliver. I see they have retired and left their lion, secretary valiantly striving to gull the public that all I have previoisly said is false, for wliich I am extremely obliged to him. I am not in much doubt of who will be mo3t believed. It is a foolish thing to try and bolster up a bad cause. I can thoroughly trust my memory on thi3 matter, and am quite satisfied that I can trust to those minutes he speaks of to verify what I have said. He is very sore on my indulging- in personalities, by which, I presume, he means sheeting the neglect in the matter home to himself. This, in the interests of truth, was actually necessary and unavoidable. It is a great pity that a charitable object of this kind should have been spoilt in what wo may consider the very object, by the silly obstinacy of a few men of limited ideas acting in opposition to the expressed wish of the public, but there seems to be no help for it in the present instance. I had hopes of this fund being augmented at the forthcoming Easter by some means up to the time of my troubling you with my first letter, but that hope is now gone, and it is with sincere regret that I see Greymouth failing to accomplish, by means of its Friendly Societies, that which almost every township, small or large, in the Australian Colonies has done for years past, viz., make their Easter Festi- i vities contribute to the support of their I public charities. Yours, &c, W. Hill. Greymouth, Feb. 28, 3871. [We cannot allow the correspondence on this subject to extend any further.]