THE GLADSTONE INQUEST.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10136, 5 November 1910, Page 5

THE GLADSTONE INQUEST.

THREATENED ACTION. The following correspondence ha 3 been handed to us for publication:— Masterton, October 26, 1910. Mr Jabez Bridges, Organiser No-licer.se Party for Wairarapa, f/sasterton. Sir, —According to the newspaper, at a meeting in the Marfcinborougb Town Hall on Thursday last, 21st inst, you exercised your usual prohibition tactics, and grossly slandered Mr Young, the licensee of the Gladstone Hotel, -by whom I am instructed, by saying that he was responsible for the death of a Native through supplying him with drink, and this on evidence at an inquest at which my client was neither heard nor represented. My client can entirely disprove the charge, but that is not the question —the question is that it is about time some of you gentlemen with long tongues and apparently little scruple were put in their place. Unless you at once publicly apologise you may expect proceedings, and then you will have the opportunity of proving your venomous utterances, tending to ruin a man and his family, or "eating the leek.' Surely you can conduct your alleged campaign without stooping to such atominable tactics. I have to congratulate you upon the results of the nc-license polls in Australia. Yours truly, C. A. POWNALL. (REPLY). Mr C. A. Pownall, Solicitor, Masterton. Dear Sir,—ln replyii.g to your not over-courteous letter of October 26th last, J desire to inform you that the statements I made in the Martinborough Town Hall were, I believe, true in substance and in fact, being based upon the sworn testimony cf witnesses at the inquest' referred to. I therefore have no withdrawal to make nor apologies to offer, but am prepared to defend any action your client may bring against me. I am, Sir, Faithfully Yours. JABEZ BRIDGES.