THE COLONIST AND THE BOARD OF WORKS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 134, 9 August 1866, Page 3

THE COLONIST AND THE BOARD OF WORKS.

To the Editor of the Evestixg- Mail. Sir — Will you allow me as an independent elector a corner in your useful paper, to reply to what I consider an unjust attack upon the members of the Board of Works. I voted for the four gentlemen who had the majority of votes at the late election", which has been declared void through a "misapprehension" of the Secretary — so our learned friend the editor of the Colonist says. "As an elector, I am glad the election has been declared void, if for no other reason than this, that it will cause the public to take more interest in the meetings of the Board of Works than they have hitherto done; and it will also give them time to inquire into the truth of some statements 1 which were concocted by a coterie or clique of pothouse political patriots, who imagine they are the people; reminding one very much of the fable of the fishes who had been left by the receding tide, and floundered about in their mud-holes, crying out, " we are the fishes," forgetting the great ocean beyond them. But more of this anon. What I would more particularly desire to call the attention of your readers to, is a leader which appeared in the columns of the Colonist upon Friday last, written, I suppose, by your very learned friend, the editor. This gentleman gives the Secretary credit for zeal in desiring to do what was right, but he was a trifle I too precipitate in acting on his own opinion, which was evidently founded on a misapprehension — i.e., had not the Secretary better consult this learned gentleman upon all questions of law and order, as the meetings hitherto have, been models of want of order. Any stranger reading the above article will think we are a highly-favored community, having in our midst a gentleman so well qualified to put us right when we are wrong, in all matters of law and order. It happens to be rather unluckie for this knight of the quill, that he preaches better than he practises. If his memory does not fail him, perhaps I he will recollect a similar meeting of the Board of Works last year, when he sat on a chair at the reporters' table with his hat on, speaking to the meeting at large, until he was requested by a late member of the Board to stand upon his feet and address the meeting like another man, which request he complied with amidst the laughter of the meeting. This is his model of order ! Perhaps he will recollect a meeting of a more recent date, in which he played a conspicuous part. I mean the meeting known by your readers as the Battle of the Schools. It certainly ought to have been a meeting where you would expect to find order and fair play, and more especially so as the learned gentleman and his friends, some of the patriots I have referred to, had everything cut high and dry previous to the meeting taking place. But, alas for them, they realized the truth of that passage in Eobert Burns' Ode to the Mouse, viz., " The best laid schemes of mice and men Gang aft aglee." An editor of a paper, which is the palladium of liberty, would not be guilty of interfering with the liberty of the subject at an election. He would not button-hole an elector and tell him not to vote for such a gentleman, not he, and when asked the reasons of his objections to the gentleman, stated if he were elected he would kick up a d — l of a row in the committee. Notwithstanding this powerful pleading the elector voted for this gentleman, and he .was elected, greatly to the disgust of the people, i.e. the clique, and then the meeting became a model of order, five or six speaking at once, in the midst of which Mr. J. Webb, who is always putting people right and going wrong himself, demanded a poll for an unsuccessful , candidate; and strange to say neither the people nor the learned editor, who had been a member of the education board for some years, knew whether it was | legal or not, until they had consulted the Education j • Act, which happily was at hand, when 10, greatly to their dismay, they discovered there was no provision in the Act for a poll. Of course they had not made a mess of it, the Act was wrong and not the people. There is just one other subject I would call the attention of your readers to before concluding' this

letter, and it. is, this, the great. deference. that exists between the delivered speeches of this very learned editor, and the, printed reports of them in, the Colonist. It" would have puzzled a Philadelphia lawyer to understand what he' "meant at the late meeting when he got up to. enlighten' the electors upon Mr. nibble's motion to divide the city into -wards. It would disfranchise t so many electors ; but' whether it was six-fifths or one-fifth remained a mystery'to me until the following day, when it was put down at two-thirds. Perhaps the leurned gentleman felt 'the want of the voluminous papers and manuscripts that were of so much service to him upon an ever memorable occasion, when he addressed' the electors of Nelson. In conclusion I would remind this gentleman that those who live in glass houses should never throw, stones. lam, &c, Pko Boko Ppblico. Nelson, August 7, 1866.