The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1867.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 159, 10 July 1867, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1867.

We have received two letters from an anonymous correspondent, under the signature of " Sunlight," which would probably be considered of too libellous a character for publication, questioning the fitness of Mr. Francis Stevens, as a man of capacity and honor, to be entrusted ! with so important au office and undertaking as that which he seeks from our Provincial Government, and referring, in justification of this doubt, to certain articles, said to have appeared in the London Times about eight years ago, reflecting very severely upon a certain Mr. Frank Stevens, then a member of the Stock Exchange. We are unable to obtain access to a file of the Times of that date, and are consequently quite ignorant of the precise tenor of the articles alluded to, supposing that such articles did appear in that journal. We are, consequently, not in a position to decide authoritatively upon the allegations contained in the letters referred to. We would most emphatically disclaim auy hostile feeling towards Mr. Stevens, but at the same time we think it only ri»ht that the attention of the authorities should be called to the subject-matter of the letters alluded to, before entering into any contract with that gentleman, in order that they may ascertain, first, whether such articles have appeared in ' the Times, and secondly, whether the Mr. Frank Stevens, to whose conduct they refer, is identical with the Mr. Francis Stevens, whose name has lately been so prominently before the public in connection with the Railway Scheme. We feel confident, moreover, that Mr. Stevens will gratefully recognise in the course which we have adopted a means of rebutting statements which have, within the last week or so, formed a common subject of conversation in the city, and which, uncontradicted, could not but prove most injurious to him.