THE GOVERNOR AND THE OPERA “FARMERS.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4177, 10 August 1874, Page 3

THE GOVERNOR AND THE OPERA “FARMERS.”

TO TUB EDITOR. Sir, — There in surely some divinity, .or at least some merely formal respect, that in the eyes of men with a particle of good taste doth hedge a 1 Governor. From the tone and the misrepresentations which have in a miserable way characterised the assault of the Post on the opera account, that particle seems painfully absent from the idiosyneraby of the assailant, I happen to know the real facts. They are these. On several occasions the viceregal party had a certain number of seats reserved ; sometimes they wore not all taken up, and the private secretary or tho aide made three different applications for the account, in order that the amount owing for all seats reserved might be ascertained by regular document —necessary as a voucher for tho transactions of tho secretary —so that the full tale should be paid for. The history of the Governor in Australia certainly never implied narrowness in his expenditure, and to make such charges first without ascertaining facts, and to repeat when facts are known, forms .a meanness which degrades the Press, and displays a rancour and an injustice which, as directed to the high

quarter referred to, offer a melancholy instance of what is possible in some classes of journals, who think it better to “ abuse a king than to throw stones at a beggar.’’—l am, &c., Honor to whom Honor is Due. [We had declined to insert a previous letter on this subject, on the ground that it was well to confine such * a correspondence to the columns in which it had been commenced, but as the -writer of the foregoing supplies what he states to be facts which are worthy of being known, we publish his communication.]