TE ORANGA GIRLS' HOME.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13637, 16 April 1908, Page 6

TE ORANGA GIRLS' HOME.

AN INDISCREET CLERGYMAN

The Christchurch Press says it would not be doing its duty to the public did ifc not animadvert upon the conduct of tho clergyman whose letter in a local newspaper was tho chief means of bringing about tho To Oranga Homo inquiry. This gentleman, the Itev. F. P. Kendall, admitted in his evidence that his letter was based solely on the statements nf one of tho girU about whom there had boon some trouble. He did not ring up the matron of the homr as he might have done; ho took not the slightest trouble to verify tho girl's statements. Ho immediately rushed into print with hysterical statements to tho effect that the metholfat the homo wore "not those of an enlightened ago, but savoured rather of tho dark ages and tho savagery of some of the slave-oivners of American notoriety." Ro stated tiuil ho believed his authority to lie "absolutely reliable," although ho admitted in bis evidence that tho only authority he had was the bare statement of "a jj;irl of whoso character ho know nothing except that sho had boon troublesome.'' Our contemporary would like to know how tho reverend gentleman reconciles the. circulation of defamatory statements upon such authority with the definition of "charity" v.hieh ho imisi sometimes havt» rend from tho d<\sk if not expounded from tho pulpit. A.in his evidence beforo tho Commission- i er, however, he actually compared haircutting to tho "clipping of the oar? dono by 'slave-owners, tho Press can only assume — extending to him the charity he denies to others — that ho v- 1 simply unawnro nf tho moaning of the words ho uses, and that a spocios of humanitarian hysteria has utterly befogged hiy judgment.