Correspondence.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1067, 26 April 1879, Page 2

Correspondence.

(Our correspondence columns are imparUMyopen to all, but toe do not in any way -iucntify ourselves with opinions expressed therein.)

Sir,— The letter of a " Tabooed Corporal," which appeared in your columns yesterday is scarcely worthy of a reply, and had he only growled because the entertainment to our Thames friends was not quashed on account of there being no room for him at the festive board, I would nob now have encroached on your space, as the absurdity ot his remarks would have been apparent to the meanest comprehension. But as one who had a good deal to do with the getting up and carrying out of the Sergeants Mess, I cannot let the statement that the Thames Corporals were " snubbed," pass without a contradiction. It was originally intended to have a Non-Commissioned Omcers Mess, to which all Corporals woidd have been invited, but it was subsequently found that the number was so great, it was utterly impossible to find accommodation sufficient to entertain them all, and on the invitation cards, the words " Non-Commissioned Officers Mess" were erased, and "Sergeants Mess" substituted.

So tar from "the feelings of the Thames Corporals being bettei" imagined than described at being snubbed, &c," they were all thoroughly satsified with the explanations made to them by their Seargeants, and I think, sir, that there must be great obliquity in the mental vision of your correspondent, when he refuses to be satisfied with the samo explanations.

The whole tenor of your correspondents letter betrays a gross ignorance on the military distinctions between Sergeants and Corporals, for no sane man who was awaro that in the British Army, the Corporals-are included amongst the rank andfile- x would have perpetrated the remark, "that it would have beou better to have quashed the whole thing, than have made such a distinction." I again assure "you, sir, that I spoke to many of the Corporals from the Thames, and I heard nothing but expressions of the utmost gratification as the treatment they had received from their brethren iu arms in Waikato, and I should be sorry and surprised to 'learn that there is another Uorporal in the Cavalry who would homologate the opinions of tho individual of that rank who considered himself " Tabooed."— l am, &c, Peter Walker. Hamilton, 25th April, 1879.