THE COUNCIL MEETING AND MR. ROBERT RULE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 116, 4 September 1876, Page 2

THE COUNCIL MEETING AND MR. ROBERT RULE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EVENING MAIL. Sir, —In your issue of the 2nd instant appeared a letter emanating from the pen oi Mr. Robert Lawrence Rule, having reference to a local which appeared in the columns of your journal on Friday last, and bearing on tiie proceedings of tiie Municipal Council the previous evening. Having carefully perused, your correspondent's communication, I still entertain the opinion thSt the facts, as statsd in the paragraph to which exception is taken by him, are in the main strictly correct. Any impartial reader of the local which \vas published in the North Otago Times oi the lstinstant would, L venture to affirm, be forced to the conviction that your representative was not present. during any part of the meeting of the Cciuncil on Tuursday evening last. This I consider palpable, beyond a doubt. You cannot, Sir, be otherwise than extremely indebted to your correspondent for having, with that undeniable courtesy for whicii he is so proverbial, given you, at all events, what he considers ai accurate statement of what occurred. But, as he was absent from the Council Chamber during the early part of Councillor Grave's speech, I would submit that the circumstances, as narrated, are incomplete. Permit me to point out one some-' what grave inconsistency in your correspondent's effusion. He says :" On returning to the Council Cnamber teii minutes afterwards (or by the clock twenty m.'n.rfcis past ten), I found that your reporter had taken nis departure." Further on Ue states, " If he says he left the meetj-. ing at 10.30, he would be speaking the truth." Now, Sir, what can be the meaning of such a gross incongruity as' this 3 The assertion is first made that your representative had taken his departure at twenty minutes past-10, and the writer subsequently declares the-time to been 10.30.

One brief reference to myself. In the ordinary routine of duty, I attended the regular meeting of the Council on Thursday last, and was present when Councillor Grave, at about ten o'clock, intimated Jiis determination to " speak against time." on Councillor Booth's amendment. A fe\v minutes afterwards the reporter of the North Otago Times left, the Chamber, and your representative remained listening to Councillor GraveOuritil 10.25. At that hour, believing'iiq.'-further business of vany importance would-be entertained, he withdrew, and did not again return.—l am, &c., ' Your. Reporter.