CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 102, 30 April 1881, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To THE EDITOB OF THE " EVENING MAIL." Sir, — I do not know " Geo. Page," whose name is attached to a communication published in your last night's issue, but I bave a strong impression from internal evidence in tbe letter itself that the inspiration comes from some other quarter. However, as " Geo. Page " bas shouldered the responsibility of making a most slanderous public statement, I call upon him to prove tbe "false and injurious assertions" I have made, otherwise he must stand convicted as a gross libeller. The allusion to " those who live in glass houses," to my cutting a drain, &c, and the exultant enquiry "did he consult the Council previously to doing it ?" followed by the over-confident reply " be knows he did not," is so conclusive to the writer's mind that he is perfectly oblivious of the fact that the drain in question was cut some sixteen or twenty years ago, many years before the Council had existence ; that I applied to the then Board of Works to cut the drain for me, but that body declining, gratuitously permitted me to do so at my own cost. The concluding portion of the letter signed " Geo. Page " is an admission that he cut a drain on a public road without authority. In my lotfer to the City Council I characterised this as an " impudent interference with the public roadfl." What does tbe writer of the letter signed " Geo. Page " call it,"?— l am, &0., M, M. Wsbbtbr, 30th April, 1881.

An American correspondent to a contemporary in enumerating the vauou3 qualities of the new Administration, mentions Mr Jones, aB Postmaster General— formerly Postmaster at New York— for which New Zealand should be thankful ; as he has always taken a deep interest in its mail service, and personally procured the express train for one thousand miles, which landed the City or Sydney's mail last October in England in quicker time than any former one. An instance of liberality is recorded in an up-country district of Otago, called f apanui. A local bonif.ice of the name of William Simmonds has provided the Wesleyan pastor with a horse free of charge during the past three years. Grand Flaneur has run nine times winning every race, and earning in stakes aloue £7945 of which the sum of £G%O has fallen to the lot of his lucky owner this year.