CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 59, 9 March 1878, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the 'Evening Mail.' Sib— With regard to a local which appears in your issue of last evening I sincerely hope that you are expressing the feelings of an informant and not your own. Because, in the first place, the facts are a very considerable way off the truth, and in the'second fche feelings therein expressed are not those of the public at large. That an excited crowd did gather round the Court is so far true. That he was pursued by them and that summary justice was inflicted upon that object is also true. But by whom? The person of all others who was perfectly justified in so doing, which I believe every right-thinking member of the community will also admit. That he was publicly paraded through the streets is also as well known, and I hope will be as well remembered. You then state upon reaching his shop he was belabored by Mr Levy with a loaded hunting crop. To such a statement- 1 give an I unqualified denial, such a weapon never having been in the possession of Mr Levy during the whole time of the occurrence. You also state that the Bishop of Nelson and Mr Jenkins interfered afc this stage of the proceeding*, and he wa3 allowed to esc .pe. Ihat they did interfere lam perfectly well aware, but not until some moments after the victim was allowed to escape by his persecutors, therefore there is -little thanks, I think, due to them for the- interference, cither by

the Tictim or the few, seeing that they considered that justice had been done so far. You then state tho sight was a disgusting »nd degrading one. What do you mean? That such a despicable being should be allowed to roatn the streets of thi3 city in defiance of all feelings of morality and decency to be made the remark of by every man or child who might have heard of this beastly occurrence; or that a few men in thisaity could be found with feelings of fathers and men determined to show that such acts shall not be left altogether to the tender mercies of the law, which we were told could reach no further than three years imprisonment?

You also state that no enormities of his own could justify the brutal attack made upon him this afternoon. The remark of " btutal" I treat with contempt, and I ask you, Sir, as a gentleman holding the position in society that you do, how you can use such a term towards your fellow-men, actuated, as they were, by true and disgusted feelings. Sir, I maintain that the law ia totally insufficient to meet the circumstances of a case of thii description—a case characterised by tha Bench as one of the most disgusting and most disgraceful orer heard in a Court of Justice. That you think the course pursued brutal, I am surprised at, and I sincerely trust that ifc may nerer fall to the lot of either you, or those holding kindred feelings, to have the same amount of. misery and wretchedness inflicted upon you or them, than has fallen to the lot of those unfortunate individuals, for whose sake that brutal act was perpetrated yesterday. You also ask—Where were tho police ? I will answer for them—Doing their duly, as ypii might hare been yesterday, assisting • to show the public of New Zealand that such disgusting conduct may meet its reward. ' v I am, &c, A Participator. Nelaon, March 9,1878.