A SLANDER ON CENTRAL OTAGO.

Evening Star, Issue 12625, 3 October 1905, Page 7

A SLANDER ON CENTRAL OTAGO.

TO THK EPITOB. Sir.—Messrs William Thomson, W. D. Mason, and " Pro Bono Publico" must think me very " slow" if they imagine I will bo to foobsh as to engage in a " head« you win, teUft I lose " tort of game. They know perfectly well that my statement — i.e., "that there were tliirtyi poisons who were palpably injured by drink round a certain town" —is impossible of proof unless they have had prohibition orders taken cut against them. I make the assertion after careful inquiry; people can believe it or not as they like. There is no more call upon mo to name the town I referred to in Central Otafin than if T had said Otago without tho Central. Central Otago is a large aTea, and there are many places in it with only two hotels. It is only fair to state, however, that some places in Central Otago are exceedingly eober and orderly. Naseby, I believe, is bo. Mr Mason is at great paina to show that I meant Middlemarch. Ho is welcome to his conclusion if the cap fits. It is not unuMial for men thai) are the slaves of drink to dwry that fact with much vehemence of language. The same applies to towns. Mr Mason says that it would be a foal libel to say there are four families ruined by drink in Middlemarch. I did not say one family was ruined by drink even in the place J spoke of. I said there'wera thirty victims—i.e.. persons—who have been hurt by drink, and who could not be trusted not to drinli to excess. I could introduce Mr Mason to six people even in Middlemarch to-day who would tell him of. from twelve to sixteen persons tPVteh as I describe in that town. M regards my meeting, Mr Mason unfairly did not any that it rained steadily all the afternoon, stopping only jutt before the hour of meeting; nor did he say that there was also a dance on that same night, at which the whisky flowed fpecly; nor did he say that at Sutton, a few miles away, 'I was invited back for Sunday afternoon, alter holding a meeting during tho week, and, in spite of the ram, had a larger* meeting the second time than the first. When I left Middlemaroh, the last sight I saw was two re-spectably-dressed young men howling round the street like lunatics at two o'clock in the afternoon shamelessly drunk. There was also a sad case of a woman, wife of a very highly-respected resident, drunk the previous evening. At Green Island on Friday night the Rev. Kilpatrick declared that in ten years' residence in the Clutha under No-license he only saw two drunken men in his parish. There were throe cases in Middlemarch ia twenty-four hours, and the Rev. Ponder, the local Presbyterian minister, has commented strongly on the subject from the pulpit. Yet Mr Mason is proud of the apathy of Middlomarch, and declares it as sober a place as any part of Clutha I This closes this correspondence so fav ap I am concerned.—l ani, etc., G. Bebnasd NichollsOctober 3.