LIEUTENANT HERD FURTHER REPLIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2809, 15 January 1908, Page 66

LIEUTENANT HERD FURTHER REPLIES.

(Fboji Our Own Cobbjbspondent.) WELLINGTON, January 13. Lieutenant Herd 1 has Teplied to further criticisms by the Dunedin bandsmen. In re§peot of she charge that he had done wrong in going into the judge's room, he says that he was invited to go into this particular room by Mr John Dixop, and he had not the least idea that it was the judge's room. He discovered it was so only after he had got inside. Had he known before he would certainly not have entered the Toom. Lieutenant Herd admitted having written to Lieutenant Bentley saying that if the latter gentleman wished to 'call and see him on his way through Wellington he^ would be pleased to extend to him the hand of hospitality, 'aa he understood Lieutenant Bentley was a comparative stranger to these parts. He did so for 1 two reasons — firstly, because it was a recognised duty amongst commissioned officers when a stranger holding commissioned "rank was visitin.g their parts, , no matter in what capacity, to extend the hand of fellowship to him ; secondly, he did so because ' there passed through his mind a memory that while he was on his- way -to' adjudicate in the Ballarat band contest in 1901 the bandmasters and several officers extended 'the same hearty welcome to him on his arrvial at Sydney. He failed to see how any im- • proper construction could be put upon his act in simply doing his- duty as an officer. It was quite a common occurrence for committees, which in many cases were composed of competing bandsmen, to meet an adjudicator on his arrival in the town where a contest was -to be held; but it' seemed to him that because a man was appointed to the responsible, -position ,of adjudicator he at once laid himself oven to all sorts of frivolous attacks, and whether he was an honest man or not he was painted as dishonest by certain people. But quite apart from the argument, he would ask how the judge's decision was to be - affected when he was boxed up in such a. manner _that he could not possibly see which band was playing at any time during the competition, and woufd have no means of distinguishing 1 on© from the other (except by numbering them in the order of their

- playing) until the names of the bands were supplied to him by the supervisor (after the* making.of the awards by numbers), in the presence of from each competing band,- arid .immediately prior to the publio announcement of the awards. It might be argued that a New Zealand judae, though boxed up, might know a band by its tone. That, however, would be a most .dangerous venture for any judge to make, and he would probably find himself mistaken.