The Globe. MONDAY, JUNE 26, 1876.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 630, 26 June 1876, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, JUNE 26, 1876.

The correspondence which we publish elsewhere, with reference to the dispute between Mr. Johnson and the Acclimatisation Society, regarding the ownership of a box of salmon ova, brings to light an act of high-handed injustice on the part of the Council, anything but creditable to its members. Our readers will remember that previous to the arrival at the Bluff of the ova, which had been seat out by the s.s. Durham, application was made by the Canterbury Society for a box or two, and a reply was received from Mr. Macaudrew stating that two were being forwarded by the Arawata. Mr. Johnson, it appears, had made a similar application, and had been informed that one box was being sent to him by the same steamer. On reaching Lyttelton it was found, however, that only two boxes, instead of three, arrived, and a rather discreditable altercation took place between the Secretary of the Society, and Mr Johnson, as to the ownership of one of them. Mr. Barr, however, who appears to have got possession of both boxes first, succeeded in maintaining it, but promising, if the larger proved to be a double one, that Mr Johnson should have the smaller. On arriving at the ground the large box was opened, and, as it was found to be a single one, the garden committee decided that neither belonged to the late curator. Before arriving at this conclusion those gentlemen would have shown a greater desire to act with fairness had they made a few inquiries into the facts of the case. The least they could have

done was to communicate with the Superintedent of Otago, and with the curator at Wallacetown, from whom the facts would have been at once elicited. They would then have disCoyered, what has now been brought under their notice, that the larger box alone belonged to the Society. Mr Howard perhaps acted rather carelessly in not advising the Acclimatisatfon Society that the one box for them, contained more than two of the ordinary sized boxes, but this omission might easily have been remedied had there been any desire to treat Mr Johnson with consideration. But if the members of the Council were to blame in the first instance, we mukt apply a harsher term to their conduct in refusing to entertain Mr Johnson’s claim, now that the facts are brought before them. They have taken up a position in their corporate capacity, which, we venture to think, they would not dare to occupy as private individuals.