A Calumny.

Patea Mail, 16 December 1881, Page 3

A Calumny.

The following letter has been sent to the Mayor of Patea : Mail Office, Dec. 15.

Your Worship,—l observe a statement in an evening newspaper alleging that tenders for printing Borough ByeLaws have been dealt with improperly by you, and that some unfair advantage has been given to me as one of the tenderers. Being a public officer, you may deem it necessary to take official notice of the calumny. It may assist you to make your action clear if I inform the Council, as I now do in this note, that I am willing to give up my contract and charge nothing for the work already done, if it be shown that any fair grievance exists in connection with my tender or my mode of doing the work. So far as your Worship is concerned, I am not aware of any fact or incident or thing that could give color to the absurd allegation made against your fairness in this matter. My impression was that your behaviour to me was rigidly official and scrupulously exact. So far as the calumny affects me, it is one of many that I disdain to notice. —I am your Worship’s obedient servant, Edward Houghton. P.S.—I observe it is said you required Sunday labor to get the ByeLaws published by Monday evening. No servant of mine was at work on Sunday. My printing staff had a halfholiday on Saturday (except one boy), and they worked two hours in the evening. They came a little earlier on Monday morning, and the paper was published at the usual hour in the afternoon. Putting Saturday and Monday together, they worked less than eight hours a day.—E.H.