CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1215, 2 December 1882, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —ln the few remarks I am about to make I have no intention of either attacking or cavilling at Freemasonry. To do so would cause needless pain to some of the fraternity who must always command my deepest rej spect. Masonry, so far at least as the i brotherhood are concerned, 1 believe to aspire at carrying out much of the teaching of the higher law. 1 have known it as a comfort to the. afflicted ; as assisting the poor and needy, and a support to the widow and fatherless. Allow me to state that my late brother had for some years belonged to the fraternity, being a member of the local Lodge. Did that Lodge, through any or cither of its official brethren, pay one single visit to their ** brother,” while slowly wasting away from a lingering and painful malady ? Has it condoled with the widow and fatherless? Or, lastly', did it tender that last outward form which a Lodge usually accords to its departed brothers ? It has done none of these things ? Freemasonry, therefore, whilst on the one hand it can, like the genie in the Arabian Nights’ expand, and fill the whole Universe, it also, on the other hand, sometimes contracts and dwindles to mere nothingness, of empty foam and meaningless jargon. E. F. Harries. Gisborne, Nov. 30, 1882. Sir, In your issue of yesterday there is a local referring to “ what might imvc been a, serious accident ” on the Whataupoko bridge on Thursday last. The account given of the occurrence, as stated by your reporter, whoever that individual may be, is most incorrect. He first states “ what might have been a serious accident happened yesterday through a couple nf horsemen crossing the bridge at a sharp canter--the horses cannoned.’’ Now, sir, this is not true. There was only one horseman crossing the bridge at a trot ; the other horseman (myself), was approaching from the Whataupoko side at a walk, as several persons can testify. The father of the child and another old gentleman were “mooching” along utterly oblivious as to his whereabouts. The youngster, instead of keeping his eyes before him, was gazing up the river. 1 sung out to the rider “look out; look out;” but before he could steady the animal the boy was pushed over. The horseman’s conduct, no doubt, was most reprehensible for travelling at such a pace over a crowded bridge, but the father of the child and his old fogey friend were still more to blame for allowing a child of such tender years to fossick his way across the bridge at such a critical time.—l am, &c., W. K. Mclean. [We can only state that our information was gathered from statements made to “that individual,” our reporter. Ed., P.B.S.]