A SLANDERER ANSWERED.

Evening Star, Issue 3020, 24 October 1872, Page 3

A SLANDERER ANSWERED.

Chivalry is not likely to die so long as Britons live in Australia and their womankind remain to them. In the // ome News for April we quoted from a letter written from Melbourne by an unfortunate “Aberdonian,” and originally printed in the Aberdeen Free Press. Our opinion of the extract was indicated with sufficient clearness in the very brief note we then appended. “ AngloAustralian,” writing to us from West Maitland. New South Wales, deems our treatment of the “Aberdonian” hardly severe enough, and favors us with the following letter. We insert it so that our fair readers may know that they have a champion in their midst : “ Sir, —lu your issue, No. 259, vol. 20, page 7, appears one of the most gross libels on Australian ladies that can be published. Coming as it does from a Scotchman, born of a land in which, however defective her morality, its sons have ever been known to love and honour the fair sex, it is the more painful to find that a journal which has ever commanded the support and has been so highly estimated as the Home Newt, should publish the ravings of some cub, who, from unworthiness or some other cause, has been unable to obtain an entre into decent society. As the husband of a lady born in the colony, and the father of a large family of sons and daughters, I feel certain that few girls in England, in the middle class of society, are ns well educated or well trained to make useful wdves, as naturally clover or truly religious, and so good in every respect, as Australian ladies. 1 assert that, as a rule, the ladies here, as elsewhere (whilst resenting impertinence), are more inclined even than in the old country to evince hospitality ; that in any reputable family (such as your informant cannot have had the privilege of mixing with) the ladies are equally refined, and even more talented than in colder climes. There are some people to whom men and women alike must bo rude, and your informant 1 fear must bo one of this class to refer to Australian ladies as rude, in short the fact of his doing so proves it. So far as personal appearance goes, 1 contend that (to repeat the words of an old colonist who has travelled much), ‘There are prettier and more loveable girls in Australia than in any other part of the world ’ Regarding the reference to conceit, 1 consider that every good educated woman rightly asserts a proper amount of self-respect, which your friend evidently estimated as conceit. In conclusion, my excuse for addressing you must be my love for all good women, whether English or Australian, and my great astonishment that so cleverly conducted and respectable a journal should dare to publish so wicked a libel on our wives and children.”