MR GLADSTONE ON COFFEE TAVERNS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5542, 20 November 1879, Page 3

MR GLADSTONE ON COFFEE TAVERNS.

Sir. — I am sorry that by an oversight you should have given 'currency tp a mischievous forgery perpetrated in the name of the: Right Hon.^.W. 8.-' Gladstone. That gentleman's 6Uast deliverance," on the subject of coffee taverns is as follows, and was written in reply to 'an invitation by the Key. 1 W..G. 'Horde: to open ono.of these institutions' at -Wood- Green :— . K . , .'',! am. obliged by engagements elsewhere fcrleavo 'London on the mornng of ; .Saturday for "Flintshire, and I shall be unable;~lrieed not say, to take I ' part-in tha opening of- your new coffee tavern. I take, however, a sincere interest in' all endeavors justly made 'to give a fall and fair trial to thjs, experiment, and to give, the mass of the community; a fair chance .—which they have! never yet had — be--.tw-een- alcoholic and the less, exciting liquors. It-may perhaps be of uae if you kindly think proper to mako this assuranco public, as a forgery has . been published, in some newspapers, which I need .not name, purporting to be'a letter from me in condemnation of coffee taverns. — .Your faith ful .'servant, W. E. Gladstone. 73 •HarleyjBtreet; August 2,1 , 1879. " -The forgery first Appeared, in the London Echo, to the editor of which paper it had been sent, on a postal card^ as ab'oh'a fide communication, The editor, how-

• ever, was Hat so easily; deceived ,aj} his correspondent imagined," &hd published the letter with an introductory note, m which he remarks ..that, the writer might perhaps have imposed upon 1 him if lie had . been able to imitate c Mr Gladstone's Btyle as successfully as his handwriting. The person Who first gave" currency to; the paragraph in- the form in "which you have quoted -it mtlst therefore have done so kribfringly-'arid-vWlfuliy^ I may add ! that I read the forgeryy with the editorial : note of the Mciio, in trt Napier paper some months ago. ,As it has again appeared — this time without the' antidote— l cailnot allow it to pass without Contradiction. — Yours, Sec., _, ! . R. Gimehksd SAftHijd, Napier, 19 th November. 1879.