CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5081, 19 July 1895, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

THBLATKMR. SAWYER,

[TO THE KDITOR.]

Sir, —lu your paper of Saturday you mention the death at Maitland, N.S.W., of Mr John Sawyer, formerly, in" TheThirtios," a surveyor in New Zealand. An anecdote of him, told to me in linglaud, in the forties, by a personal friend of both, is illustrative of Jir Sawyer's presence of mind and readiness of resource. Mr Sawyer was being ferried across one of our North Island rivers by a ferocious and truculent-looking Maori, In midstream demand was made for the payment at once of a greater fare than agreed on, Mb tobacco, or whatever it might be. On refusal, violence was threatened. Mr Sawyer was unarmed, but he pulled out his telescope and presented it at the Native. At the sight, the Maori paused, and as the telescope expanded and the third barrel of glittering brass appeared, plunged overboard and swam as if for his life, to the shore he had come from, ilr Sawyer finished his passage ijmtia and in triumph.—l am, etc,, J. C. ASDREW,

PARSONS AND PEW-RENTS. [to the editor, w. n, times,] Silt,—[ quite agreo with the Rev. Mr Yorke: thero should be no seatrents, and the House-of-God should be free to rich and poor alike. Compulsory fees are false in principle, as ho says, and we might go a step further—with scriptural authority for this also —and say that fixed salaries for parsons aro wrong, too. liut often in this life, people think it becomes necessary, in order to do any good at all, to blond the practical and theoretical with that charitable and reasonable compromise, which one must admit is so frequently attended with the best results. Still nobody can say that pew-rents are n nice institution, for really if one honestly analyses this system, it is nothing more or less than the institution of a charge for admission toal'lace-of-Worship, whereby, those who are well enough olf to afford "season tickets" (for half-yearly rentals are nothing else) arc able to monopolise all the best pews, Free seats, when in limited number they do exist, are such in name only, and are generally allotted in the remotest anddraughtiest portions of the building. "l'is true that in many Churches all seats are free aftor the bell stops: still the poor man is at a disadvantage; ho bus to hang round the door till his moro prosperous neighbours have settled down, and then satisfy himself with any unoccupied seat he can find,

If pew-rents can conscientiously be exacted—although personally I am not prepared to admit that they are a righteous infliction—then why not frankly own up that the Church makes payment for seats a practical necessity and make the levy in a sensible and convenient manner by charging admission at tho door, whereby everyone is more nearly on the same footing and the capitalist is prevented from buying up the best sittings in advance, You, Mr Editor, say in effect that the parson should restrict himself to supervision of the spiritual, not troubling himself about matters material, even when a question of principle is involved; and you ask "What can a clergyman know about finance?" Quite so; and may I rejoin: What can a newspaper-man know about churches! Personally

I am neither one nor tto other, and perhaps may, therefore, withsomo propriety constitute myself an authority on a burning question of this kind.—l am, etc., A Pious Pauper, Mastorton, 19 th July,

Captain Husscll's motion has been accepted by tlio Government as a want of confidence motion, and the debate on it is now occupying the House. Mr James "Whitehead's tender has boon accepted for scrub-cutting at Akitio, by Messrs Haudyside, Hobcrls and Co.