NELSON INSTITUTE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 55, 5 March 1878, Page 2

NELSON INSTITUTE.

TO THE EoiTOlt OF TJHi ' EvKXIXQ MAIL.' Sin, — In an editorial uotc, appended to an iinnonymous letter iv yesterday's Mail, resiiectuig the non-publication of the annual report of (ho Nelson Institute you say, •' i lie omission is to be charged to tfie Committee, ii'it to ourselves." It is proper that your reticle rs should know that the report in question was ottered to your paper for publication, ami that it was refused iusertion unless the baliince-siieec were paid for as an advertisement. You have, of course, a, right to refuse insertion to any item of news; still, it does seem somewhat singular to an outst.ler that, while the newspapers willingly and daily incur the expense of printing accounts oli innumerable matters transpiring in (liit'erctu parts of tUc. colony, inauy of uhioh concern us not at all. they. decline, unless paid for it, to give circulation, once a year, to the report of a useful public instituuou in our midst, and the condition and prospect of which are of general interest. As one of the Committee, I may mention' that all who a:e desirous can see the report— which is a record of considerable profit this year— at the Institute, on application to the Librarian.— I am, &c, 11.I 1 . W. Irvine. JNelaon, March r>, 1878. [Until ihifs year the Committee have invariably advertised their balance sheet, and we hu.ve done them the favor of publishing their report free of charge. On

the present occasion they have not considered the financial condition of the Institute to be of sufficient importance or interest to the public to justify the statement being advertised, and we have applied the same rule to the report, believing the Committee to be the (,best judges whether their proceedings should or should not be made public. We and |our contemporaries have been most liberal to the Institute in the way of giving them gratuitous advertisements — witness the many letters and paragraphs emanating from the Librarian relative to missing books, &c, which have been published free of cost and the result is the verification of the old proverb which foretells the inevitable outcome of giving "an inch." Such is the force of habit that even Dr Irvine, when writing as a member of the Committee, cannot refrain from quietly slipping iuto tha last paragraph of his letter an advertisement statiDg where certain Institute documents are to be seen. — Ed. N.E.M.J