THE COMING CONTEST.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 147, 2 September 1880, Page 2

THE COMING CONTEST.

To Tire Editor. Sir, — I see the requisitions to Messrs. St. Hill and Ivcss, as appearing in the Mail, are backed up by sixteen and eighteen signatures respectively, as pledges to return the candidates to the Council if possible. Looking at the requisitions and their replies, I notice the similarity of their “ get-up,” as though one mind had shaped them. Then, the names of six persons are attached to both requisitions, And there are also pendants tailing off with exactly one hundred signatures (invisible to the naked eye), just fifty to each requisition. Now, if the invisible signatures really represent 100 different ratepayers,, in addition to the twenty-eight (not thirtyfour) whose names appear, these two candidates are pretty certain of return, for who is left to vote for anybody else ? Then the requisition to the journalist is dated Ashburton, August 27, and his reply Cambridge, August 27 (the same date, but two different places). In my confusion of ideas, I considered the gentleman'had perhaps gone to Cambridge-cum-Newlands, and was so busy getting out his first issue of the Argus that he had to reply by carrier pigeon, or some sort of express, but seeing he speaks of business engagements in the North Island, causing his absence on the polling day. I think Cambridge, Waikato, is meant as the place from which the reply is sent. Had the requisition and reply containing these two places with the one date been associated with any other person, I might have wondered how in the world the whole concern travelled so fast, but as !i your obedient servant ” is one of those with whom all things are 2>ossible, my wonder abates with the remark that this is the first morsel thrown to the gulls, and if they swallow this, a stiffer one can be thrown next time.

Thepeculiar fitness of the present Councillor who seeks re-election in company with Mr. Ivess, so far as the Mail columns goes, seems a sort of enigma—but on reviewing his official work and talk in the past, I am reminded that longsighted men who have a log to roll, sometimes use an umbra or shadow of themselves. Such umbras often submit to severe degradation for the sake of a little fancied prominence.—l am, &c., Mailman.