ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Ralgitikei, June 19, 1854.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 931, 5 July 1854, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Rangitikei, June 19, 1854.

Sir, — A friend, resident in Wellington, has only jnst now forwarded to me the extract from the Bath Chronicle containing a calumnious report relative to my brother-in-law, Mr. H. Bunny, which was, I am informed, copied into the Spectator and other local journals. I do not complain that you and the other journalists have acted otherwise than with good Faith in this matter. But I wish you and your readers to perceive and make allowance for the prejudiced and impracticable position in which Mr. Bunny is thereby placed. His simple plea of not gutlty would of course go for nothing with the public. Yet, in the nature of the case, he can have no other available means of immediate refutation. The reports in question did not come to my knowledge until many weeks after their appearance in the local journals; and then only incidentally and orally. I waited nearly a month

longer before I was able to procure an authentic copy of the printed statement. The most innocent person so charged under th°se circumstances would have no apparent available means of setting himself right. I do not, of course, hope that the mere expression of «ny own conviction of the sincerity of Mr. Bunny's absolute and emphatic denial of the truth of the charges will satisfy the public. But there are reasons to be urged which have led to that conviction, and which may induce candid and thoughtful minds to hold their judgment in suspense. I know indeed with what extreme jealousy all partial explanations of any suspected pecuniary transaction is received in a commercial age and community. But, surely, in every Christian society one may hopefully appeal to many whoare not willing wholly to ignore the principle of divine love, which is ready to put the best construction on the worst appearances, and to rejoice not in iniqu.ty but to rejoice in the truth. i. The very tone of malignant triumph and the coarse terms of opprobrium in which the calumny is couched, beiray the animus of a personal enemy. Its language plainly is not the narrative of a mere reporter, or of an editor, desiring to inform the public of a scandal. It is, on the face of it, the scurrilous invective cf some professional rival or political opponent, or, I repeat, a bitter personal enemy of some kind, such as a stirring prosperous man in Mr. Bunny's late position would naturally have evoked; as any one acquainted with the petty politics and partisanship of a country town will readily understand. Surely the greatest allowance must be made for the exaggeration of a writer who, it is evident, does not scrupulously weigh his words in his eagerness to defame a tripping neighbour, and would be sure to overlay a single grain of truth with whole bushels of false assertion. 2. I have been intimately acquainted with Mr. Bunny since he was a child, being his senior by some years. lie married my sister at an early age — and since then I have watched his conduct with the special interest and attention, of an elder brother. I have never known him. guilty of a dishonorable act, nor did he even, until now, incur the imputation. His singular professional success and the numerous municipal offices entrusted to so young a man, are sufficient evidence of the respect in which he was hitherto held by his fellow townsmen. I do not allege ihis as proof positive of his innocence in this or that particular transaction, it is a fact, however, directly counter to the charges of habitual mendacity, duplicity, and fraud, so indiscriminately heaped upon him by the writer, and on the deep principle of nemo repente turpissimus, affords a strong presumption of (to say the least) his comparative innocence in the very serious case in question. 3. The special acts of dishonesty with which he is distinctly charged really amount to only two. Of these I know that one has no actual foundation, for I happened to be an eye witness of the whole transaction. The other is capable of explanation without imputing fraudulent intention, and I am persuaded has no deeper foundation in fact. It is a very remarkable and significant token in his favor that in his numerous public offices where one would have most expected opportunity for breach of trust, not a single instance of defalcation is pretended. The remainder of the desciiption is dressed up with a series of irrelevant invective as to the private character of the alleged delinquent; his cupidity, insolence, and ambition; his very cast of countenance, and manners; and even such trumpery causes of offence, which it is. almost demeaning oneself to notice, as having outbidden his neighbour at a common auction. The transaction which I witnessed was that mentioned at the close, — the fraud said to be practised upon those very respectable ship agents, Messrs. Frederick Young and Co. Mr. Frederick Young is a personal friend of my own and of my sister, Mrs. Bunny. I think there are special reasons why Mr. Bunny would have avoided making him in particular the subject of so very serious a loss. However, the circumstances were simply these: — A large sum of money, several hundred pounds, were paid by Mr. Bunny into the hands of Mr. Worsley, the partner of Mr. Young, for the passage of himself and family, or for cargo, to this colony. The money was twice counted over by Mr. Worstey, who declared it to be correct, gave a written acknowledgment of the amount, and immediately deposited it in his safe or desk. It was shortly afterwards handed over by Mr. Worsley to his clerk, who on again counting it, found that £50 was deficient. I have not the slightest suspicion affecting any party as to the disposal of the missing money. There is just as much appearance of accident or carelessness on one side or the other as of trickery and fraud on either. Mr. Bunny to this day positively affirms that the money was correct when he handed it to Mr. Worsley. Mr. Worsley, having twice counted it over, in my presence declared it to be right. I confess I thought under the circumstances, that it was extremely liberal of Mr. Bunny, to consent, as he did at some one's suggestion to "split the difference" and bear an equal share of the loss. He accordingly remitted a further sum of £25 though to say the least, there was no legal claim upon him after the receipt given for the full amount by Mr. Worsley. In this instance I affirm on my own personal knowledge the gross misrepresentation of the facts. It requires no great stretch of charity to suppose a similar perversion in the othercase, and to prefer Mr. Bunny's own explanation of the circumstances, with my testimony already pledged to his uniform integrity in past years, to the self-evident exaggerations of his anonymous accuser. He is charged, if I rightly understand the charge, with enriching himself by a systematic fraudulent disposal of property already mortgaged. The mention of particulars enables one to identify the property in question. It was not his own, but his father's, until quite a recent date. While it belonged to his father, the freehold of a portion was conveyed to a purchaser for building purposes. By him (not, observe, by Mr. Runny or his father, but by a third party in possession of it) this portion was mortgaged, as stated, to different individuals; nor did the smallest pecuniary benefit accrue to Mr, Bunny on account of it. Such, then is the extremely slender foundation on which it is attempted to affix an indelible stigma of systematic fraud upon an honourable name; and a single irrelevant in-

stance is magnified by the malevolence of the accuser into a justification of the sweeping assertion of an habitual "mode of operation" by which the accused succeeded in "obtaining by means of false conveyances nearly double the value of the finished portions of West Street and Donnington Square." The fact is the whole property in Donnington Square which cost Mr. Bunny more than £17,000, was sold by him for £13,000. The total amount of mortgage was £5,200, and the balance paid to parties who had claims on the estate. I cannot conclude without giving utterance to my own serious conviction, as a clergyman, that the sin in God's sight of privily slandering a neighbour, presents at least as deep a die and is more awfully denounced by Him, — l will add is no less injurious to the real interests of social life in this world, — than the most grievous class of offences imputed to Mr. Bunny. Apologizing for the length of this explanation which I have felt it a duty to put forth, I have the honor to be, Sir, Your faithful and obedient servant, ARTHUR BAKER. Late Chaplain to the Duke of Portland. P.S. — I am told that another newspaper report mentions and lays a stress upon a letter of Mr. Bunny's father, in which the phrase occurs, that "he (Mr. Bunny, junr.,) wouid not voluntarily return, I do not see that any more significant inference can well be drawn of the intended meaning of the phrase than that Mr. Bunny bad emigrated to a distant colony, and had no intention of returning.