AN APOLOGY.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XVII, Issue 836, 21 April 1885, Page 3

AN APOLOGY.

TO THE EDITOR. ’ ! Sir, Had your Hawea correspondents replied to my letter in a gentlemanly manner as they did to the Wanaka correspondent of the Witness, I would have apologised long ago ; but when a man, for giving utterance to the public voice with a view to redressing a wrong, is termed a “ viper and reptile,” the most conclusive way in which he can prove that the accusations are ill-applied is to refrain from giving sting for sting. I wrote in the interests and at the request of the aggrieved party, whose statements I believed to be trustworthy. The case as laid before me seemed such a gross injustice to a large section of the community, and such an outrage upon society, that I considered it my duty to expose it through the public Press. Unlike the Hawea correspondent of the Lake C unty Press, who found out that he had been led astray somewhat, my letter was in type before I heard that I had received a somewhat exaggerated account of the matter. It was to late, therefore, for me to recall it as he did his. It is very evident, however, that something very unfair and unneighborly had been done, causing all these rumors and setting all the scribes in the district writing. In a letter to the Lake County Press your correspondents say “ We wish the public to be placed in possession of the true version of the case.” Why do they not give the public the true version of the case ? Do they imagine that the public are to be gulled into the belief that there is nothing in.it ? Why do they not show that the gentlemen appointed to grant the use of the school to parties requiring it put a notice upon the school intimating that persons requiring the use of the school must apply to them in writing for it ? That none of the Presbyterians knew about it til) they went there to hold Sunday school and divine service ; that both the gentlemen referred to were by a strange coincidence away from home that day ; that a member of the School Committee went for the key, and that the boy with whom the key was left refused to give it up, unless said member of School Committee would sign for it, which he of course would not do. The Presbyterians had been in the habit of using the building regularly for a considerable time. Why were they not politely informed that in order to continue to use it they must apply in writing for it ? How long have the Presbyterians held other than a verbal permit to use the school for religious purposes ? Only since they were locked out. If these gentlemen wish to show that they have acted in a manly, straightforward and Christian manner let them “ put the public in possession of the true version of the case.” As they wish the public to look upon them as martyrs, let them show by argument and not by bounce that they were not the prime cause of the bother. In so far as my letter contained an exaggerated version of the matter, I humbly apologise, more especially for the remarks referring to a member of the Vincent County Council, because, as I have since found out, I was completely led astray with regard to him. I believe he had nothing to do with the matter.—l am, etc., Philadelphia. Pembroke, April 16’, 1885.