RE WELLINGTON CENTENARIAN

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 232, 25 June 1921, Page 7

RE WELLINGTON CENTENARIAN

Sir. —The communication of your correspondent this morning, whilst doubtless actuated by the kindliest of feeling. is an apt. illustration of mistaken kindness, probably due to lack of knowledge of the real situation. The home in which our old friend is living is not in the ordinary sense a charitable aid establishment (although that home is by nd means -uncomfortable or undesirable), but a special institution created by just, those sentiments which your correspondent evidently shares, of providing some comforts for the aged gentle-folk who have no particular friends to look after them. Tt is indeed a home, and from my own visitation to it I know that it. would be nn impossibility to find one more kind y sympathetic and attentive than the lady matron. During tho last nine years I have had many opnortunities of hearing the expressions of the residents, and all are loud in their praise of the comfort and attention shown to them. Moreover, your correspondent has not thought, of the pleasure which old people derive from the companionship of their fellow-boarders. The friendly fireside smoke and chats about old times, the argument about modern times when tor example our old friend thought of, enlisting for service jn the war. Ihe sleeping arrangement is also two beds in each room so that' «Tioold either require attention through ihe night his friend is there to give the alarm, anjj being in close proximity to the hospital, medical aid can be secured without loss of time.

I feel confident that if your correspondent will iust visit the home ami see for himself he will realise that to remove our old friend from such congenial surroundings and locate him in a solitnrv though ever So comfortable, a house would be a mistaken kindness. Indeed. T question very much 11 you could secure our old friends consent to anv such change. . Whilst ooiie (appreciating tnc motive which evidently prompted the letter. I feel sure that for comfort and happiness our old friend could not be more ideallv nlaced, and your correspondent would, T am sure, share with ns the greatest regrri if misinterpretation ot bis meaning lead to any reflection upon June 22.