ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 475, 12 November 1879, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE

[We are at all times ready to give expression to every shade of opinion, but in no case do we hold ourselves responsible for the sentiments of our correspondents.]

(To the Editor of the Patea Mail.) Sir,— As‘that portion of the public of Waverley who do not know the facts of the case are likely to be led to a wrong conclusion by the angelic effusion of your amiable and accomplished correspondent, ‘‘Observer,” and moreover* as the lastnamed personage appears to labour under the mild hallucination that the Town Hall Reserve belongs exclusively to the township, you will perhaps allow me space for explanation. In 1869 or ’7O, (I forget which) the then Government were requested by the country settlers (at that time there was scarce a single resident in the town) to set apart a £-acre as a site for a public hall. This was doile* the hall erected by public subscription, and vested in the Superintendent ©f the Province. No trustee other than this gentleman has ever been appointed* though the people elected Messrs Bridge and Morton to that position. If a trust deed was made out, it was never seen or heard of by any one in this district. When the Provinces were abolished) the powers and duties of Superintendents were transferred to the Governor, and therefore Sir Hercules Robinson is the only person who has any legal authority over the building. The hall is rapidly going to decay for want of proper attention, and I think the majority of the public will agree with me that it ought to be under local control. The public can of course only suggest trustees, and gentlemen were named who were most likely to be permanent residents. I would have been glad to have added the names of two or three town residents had I been sure that those would have remained in the district, but town population is frequently shifting. “Observer” will therefore see that the town folk have only a right to the hall as a component part of the whole district, and that the country settlers are not, what he is pleased in cynicism to term “ outsiders.” If after due notice by advertisement in the local paper, he fails to attend the meeting, he should not act the dog in the manger, and growl at the result of his own neglect, for if he had attended and conducted himself in a sober and temperate manner, his words, no doubt, would have carried weight. But to vent personal spite in the columns of a newspaper, under the shelter of a is—well your readers can supply the rest. No doubt Mr Bridge is alluded to by your delicateminded correspondent in bis specimen of choice Billingsgate, and though that gentleman has his faults like you and I, yet no other person has done so much for the district.—l am, &c.,JOHN W. KEN AH. Waverley, November Blh, 1879.

To Hid Editor of the Patea Mail.

Sir, —Seeing in your issue of Saturday Inst a letter signed “ Observer,” re a inootingjheld at Waverley, I think it my duty, as Chairman of that meeting, to stale the real facts of the case, as “ Observer’s ” letter is evidently calculated to mislead the public. “ Obbsorver ” states that the ostensible object of the meeting was not riotiliod. I would strongly recommend him to choose a more suitable nnm-dc-plume in future, as if he had looked through the columns of the Patea Mail any time during the week before the meeting, he would have seen an advertisement calling the meeting—Business :—To elect a committee for the ensuing year, and for any other business in connection With the Town Hall.-” If ho had also visited any of the business places in Waverley during the same week,- he would have seen (had he even been a “casual observer”) notices po'sted up calling the meeting.- The Committee fe’eingelected,- a motion Was proposed that the Chairman write to Mr Bryce with a view to getting the reserve vested in trustees,- which was carried unanimously. Three gentlemen were then suggested as trustees (not from among the number present,- as “ Observer” states) but all outsiders. Now, I would ask, how could any meeting have possibly been more public or straightforward ? fn conclusion, I would advise “ Observer ” to' get the true facts of a case in future before exercising his mischief-making propensities in anonynious compositions,-calculated to injure his neighbours. —I am, &c.,F. P. FOOKES. Waverley Nov. 10th, 1879.