ROWNTREE AND SHERWELL'S FIGURES AND YOUR ARTICLE OF 6th JANUARY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8092, 9 January 1903, Page 4

ROWNTREE AND SHERWELL'S FIGURES AND YOUR ARTICLE OF 6th JANUARY.

To the Editor. .Sir.—l was exceedingly pleased to read vour sub-leader, in your issue of last night, on my letter of 2nd inst., and_to see that my old friend (and I trust I may still venture so to term him. Prohibition "to tile contrary notwithstanding," as the lawyers v.-uuld say) was not, as I conjectured he could not be, primarily responsible for the tables I criticised, which lias relieved me from any apprehension that the stress and excitement oi the late Prohibition campaign mishl iiave been too much fur luni. It has also taken away any delicacy I felt in criticising fully and stigmatising, as they deserve, "the figures given as Rowntree and .Sherweli's in the tabulated statement you published. "Ihe fact that William P. I". Ferguson, of Chicago, is an A.l>. and B.l). does not in the least alarm me. as for tliefirst 50 years or so of my life, before I came to Xew Zealand, I was intimately acquainted, with scores who could put these letters after their names, and I found that, as a rule, they v.-ei'e juj=t very ordinary men, with perhaps a little more knowledge of (Ti-eek and Latin and the higher mathematics than the average school boy, but in no other way remarkable, and frequently singularly and amusingly ignorant of things and topics which were "not included -in their school books and curriculum. It seems to me that a certain gentleman and his wife mentioned in the Xew Testament were "not in it ' as perverters of the truth in comparison with the author of this table, as they only kept back a portion of that which they were bound, in truthfulness, to declare and disclose. 'while the compiler of this table has, in more than one instance, as I have shown, kept back the whole 1 giving Rowntree and Sherweli credit for no returns of no-licence towns or places, while actually their printed and published figures show a larger number of places in the"two States I have referred to than the Sentinel s list does. I might, as you put it facetiously, say a good many "nastv things nicely and nice things nastily"' with respect to your article, but have no intention of doing so, as I have no quarrel with you, nor do I desire one, and am pleased to find that it was not your i veracity which was to blame for these mis- | quotations, but only your perhaps too ini genuous confidingness in William P. F. Fer- ■ guson's fairness and . correctness of quota- | tion. Besides, the season of the year does ; not encourage any unfriendly feelings. I ! would only point out that, if'you will take : the trouble to refer to my letter on which ' your article is based, you will observe that "I said nothing about the correctness or otherwise of Rowntree and Sherweli's figures, but only stated that they had been misquoted and misrepresented with hardly an exception. I have no more means of verifying their accuracy than I have of the Sentinel's, but I can tell if they have, or have not, been misquoted, as I have Rowntree and Sherweli's published statement giving certain, figures. Please convey my humble apologies to your office boy for having taken his name in vain, as your statement completely exonerates him from any suspicion of the table having been evolved from his "guileless" brain. I must also thank you for your invitation to complete my. criticism of the list given as Rowntree and Sherweli's in Ferguson's table, and will do so almost immediately, and hope to get through with "this seif-imposed task"' considerably before we are all "enjoying another merry Christmas." I will, however, if you will permit me, trouble you with one other letter before doing this, which I had thought of sending just before the holidays commenced, but deemed it more merciful to yon, your readers, and myself not to bother with letters on controversial subjects while we were all intent on enjoying, or preparing to enjoy, tiie great- and long looked forward to holiday of the year. I am, etc., A. H. MAUDE. January 7th.

[lt will be news to our readers to learn that our correspondent- felt a "delicacy" "in. criticising fully and stigmatising, as they the figures given as Rowntree and Sherwell's in the tabulated statement" we published, for he did not exhibit any. If his long letter was not stigmatic, what was it? Our correspondent declared that the table was characterised by gross misrepresentation, and so forth—therein was the stigmatism; but he ended there. What is now required if our correspondent desires to say anything- more on the question, is demonstration and justification. This is what he professed he was anxious to give; but he doesn't give it even now. All we get is a communication on nothing in particular. The reader will observe, for instance, the reference to Mr Ferguson, in whose pamphlet the disquieting table ap- ' pears. Oar correspondent is not justified in questioning that gentleman's authenticity simply because he happens to possess what may be accepted as evidence of scholarship. But, having got thus far, in his search for a colorable defence of the position he has taken up—having, because Mr Ferguson has certain cabalistic letters after his name, gratuitously implied that he may be utterly untrustworthy—he abandons all discretion, and, with reckless extravagance, pretends that Mr Ferguson is an unparalleled cheat, by associating his name with those of' Ananias and SappHira. All this, because there was omitted from the table mention of four or five places out of 31! Our correspondent does not acknowledge—■ probably because he does not know of it—•that- in the case of Illinois, Mr Ferguson's table credits Messrs Rowntree and Sherwell with quoting 150 places under Local Option, whereas they, in their book, merely say : "There are more than 140 no-licence towns in the State." In regard to another place (Michigan), Rowntree and Sherwell say that, "the towns are very few" that avail themselves of Loail Option, whereas Mr Ferguson, in his table, credits them with saying "a few." This does not indicate that Mr Ferguson desires to make his case good by quoting lower figures than those given by Rowntree and Sherwell. Why did our correspondent write his communication if he had nothing better to say? It was very merciful of him to abstain from sending us another letter just before the holidays commenced ; but why should he contemplate such mercilessness as to' send it now? There is only one letter that we want from our correspondent, and that is one "in which he will seek to justify his condemnation of a man whom he inferentially likened to Ananias, whereas, in regard to the sin which seemed to him to warrant such a parallel,, the other side, so ; far. appear to be the real offenders.—Ed. O.M.]