The Member for Invercargill

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 22, 5 August 1884, Page 3

The Member for Invercargill

The Southland Times says : — " The people went in crowds to hear Mr HatcbTsj/eak but it was to hear him ' slanjc' his opponents; ani they passed a vote <>f confidence in him because, we suppose, they were not disappointed.' The speech, a very j long one, was characteristic from beginning to end, and was v«ry amusing. It was a speech on everytuina 1 , with those 'asides' for which Mr Hatch is famous, ana which having really a slight inhnion of A^fvmus Ward in Mib«tance aud manner, invariably bring duwu ihe house. For the time being 1 , Mr Hatch was on the stage, and was ot the stage, and lie delivered a stage ironologue that it would certainly be very hard to b"at. And the ' News' thin writes concerning him ; " As th« 'slan^-wanger' \'r Joseph Hatch has probably few equc^, and no superior out of Billin^sgaic. h had been, of course, known previous] v that he could scold like a fishwife ; give cheek like a costerinonger or bargee. But it had scarcely been supposed that he could have reached the depths he did— slinging mud to the right and left — regardless alike of the feelings and reputation of friends or foes. Some of his worst personalities and his most indelicate inuendoswill scarcely bear repetition He 'has clearly misunderstood his vocation. He should folio <v that of a travelling mountebank. Perched on a waggon at a country fair he would astonish the yokels, sell them no end of worthless physic, and pretend to cure them of every known ill by his miraculous powers. These remarks may appear °trong.