BISHOP SELWYN'S JOURNEY

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 8

BISHOP SELWYN'S JOURNEY

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—Again this matter of Bishop Selwyn's journey. I don't suppose it really matters to us when his Lordship commenced his journey as long as he really arrived here. Of this latter fact, anyway, we are sure. My letter was written to endeavour to'correct what was apparent to me as an inaccurate statement, which if not corrected in time would be accepted by posterity as fact. Two letters have now b,een written to "The Post" negativing the statement which I quoted from the "Scottish Guardian" of January 18, 1842. This paper was, I am told, at that time second only to the London "Times." So surely more credence must be given to the newspaper reporting a farewell function to the Bishop one week after his departure than a biography compiled 37 years after that departure/In our own Parliament a newspaper article is invariably accepted as fact, more so than the statement of a professional biographist. An editor of a newspaper is indictable for false utterances,,, and really it is beyond me to imagine how the subscribers to the "Scottish Guardian" of January 18, 1842, would have received that report of a farewell function to Bishop Selwyn five days prior to January 18, 1842, if it were known to them that his Lordship had sailed from Plymouth on December 26, 1841 (as the biographers have it). With all due respect to the two illustrious biographers who have been quoted so ably by your correspondents, I am afraid that the newspaper article written a week after the departure of Bishop Selwyn -on his journey is the more likely to be acceptable as the true version of the date of his Lordship's departure for our shores. —I am, etc., W.N.OWEN. June 7, 1935. (To the Editor.) Sir,—Here are a few extracts from a book beside me:—-"Our Maoris," by Lady Martin, wife of the first Chief Justice for New Zealand, who had sailed nine months before his wife, 1842-43:—"We sailed from Plymouth on St. Stephen's Day, December 26, 1841." "This lesson was an example as well as by precept daily brought before all of us on board by Bishop Selwyn." "Our party consisted of, the- Bishop of New Zealand, his two chaplains, and other clergymen and students." "After more than three months we cast anchor in the beautiful harbour of Sydney. We were detained some weeks in Sydney by damage to the keel of our boat. The Bishop, his chaplain, and I got away at last in a little brigantine." "On Sunday evening, May 29, we ran by moonlight along the New Zealand coast and anchored in Auckland Harbour on a wet, dreary day, May 30, 1841, five months after leaving England."—l am, etc., A. E. REDMOND (MRS.). [This correspondence is now closed. —Ed.]