Dear Sir, -I hope that Mr Hodder had no knowledge of the anonymous letter purporting to be written in his interests, which appeared in your issue of yesterday; if he had, I hope that by this time he is heartily and thoroughly ashamed of it and wishes that it had never been penned. If he is not ashamed of it, I think that every respectable person in the village of Netherbury feels that be ought to be. Mr. Hodder’s case differed from that of all the others who sustained losses in the fire. He was tradesman whose goods were fully insured; the others were poor people whose goods were uninsured. When I asked a few of my principal parishioners, and a few personal friends outside the parish, to give me a little help, the help was asked for the uninsured, and when a small committee, representative of the money contributed, met in my library, Mr. Hodder’s case was unanimously put aside, not from any want of sympathy, or from personal feeling, but simply because he, being insured, was outside the object for which, the money given. The wretched spirit of malice or culpable ignorance in which the letter is written is shown by its being made the vehicle of a side attack Mr. Tucker, the parish churchwarden, a man who most deservedly has the respect and esteem the whole district for his gentleness and readiness to help every one he can. It is true that an old woman, and one all like and respect, had lived for number of years in one of Mr. Tucker s houses, but it is also quite true that at the time the fire she had already made arrangements to give the house in a few days. What Mr. Tucker did was to ask her, in my presence, as a favour to give up the house at once, so that it might house family of nine, and, with her consent, his horses and waggon removed her goods for her. If your correspondent had “his deserts,” in accordance with the Latin motto with which he ends his letter, and makes a display of his educational knowledge, he ought to have some sharp punishment, not because he most falsely accuses me of partiality and unfairness, that is comparative trifle, but because he does a public mischief for the miserable jealousy that the letter gives expression to—the jealousy that makes a man, who has already received from an Insurance Company the amount which they calculated fully repaid his losses, still grumble and impute gross unfairness because he has not received a paltry pound or two in addition from a fund given to help poor people who were uninsured—does more to dry up the springs charity than many would imagine. Numbers who have the heart and means to give, when they read such complaints, shut up both heart and purse, and the deserving poor have to suffer the consequence.—l remain, dear sir, yours faith fully.

W. GILDEA.

Netherbury Vicarage. June 18th, 1892.