POLITICAL AMENITIES IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1154, 10 April 1872, Page 3

POLITICAL AMENITIES IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

[AUSTRALASIAN.]

We should think party rancor and per- . aonal- malevolence have rarely assumed a more offensive form in these colonies than that which they have taken during the general election now drawing to a close in New! South Wales. In the abuse 'which public men have heaped upon each other, there has been a singular absence of that wit which is said to redeem grossness. "When Sheridan, in reply to the elector who remonstrated with him for having snubbed the importunate voter, and exclaimed, "Didirt I give you my countenance at the last election," promptly rejoined, "and ad d ugly countenance it was," the humor of the repartee atoned for its coarseness ; but in the scurrility of the candidates in New South Wale*; thereto no such mitigatingelement. This, for example, is how Mr Buchanan speaks of Mr Parkes :— " He would re? , commend Mr Samuel to put Mr Parkes into "the Treasury, because, he being there, if a loan were wanted, he was a man to borrow money— to borrow it, too, on a new and improved principle — that of never paying it back again." And this is what Mr, Parkes says ■of• Mr Buchanan : — " They had been told by Mr Buchanan that he would rather lie in the gutter than be in his (Mr Parkes's) position. It would not be the , first time that that gentleman had lain in the gutter. (Prolonged cheering.) He had actually been carried out of the gutter into the watoh'hbrise'; and when that gentleman went home to England to get admitted to the bar, he implored him (Mr Paries)' not to let the authorities of the Temple know Jthat he, had ever been in the watchhouse— (cheers)— once in the Insolvency Court, and once expelled from Parlian^nt*, (Applause)." What an edifying spectacle for a free people, that of two candidates for the exalted office of law-

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makers and administrators, demonstrating their incapacity to subject their speech to tho law of reason, and proving their incompotency to govern others, inasmuch 1 as they have not yet accmirod the art of governing themselves. Mr Bowie Wilson, 1 a former colleague of Mr Parkes, expressed himself in thiswise of his old friend:— "He felt assured that, in a monetary transaction J no merchant of this city would take Mt Parkes's word, his bond, or his oath. (Cries of c Not true.') He did not think that be could traduce Mr Parkes. He had heard of one party to whom Mr Parkes had gone to ask him to accept a bill ; but when afterwards asked, be said that the bank had impounded the bill. Inquiries were made at the bank, and it was found that the bill had never been presented. Mr Parkes, in the meantime, had succeeded in swindling to double the amount of the bill." As a matter of course, Mr Parkest has something to say on the subject of Mrj Wilson, but it resolved itself into a fling at his obesity : — " His late colleague, Mrj Wilson, who was pleased to say some very! severejthings about him— (A voice : 'Give it to him'), but as he.did npfc^ear the re-; marks which that gentleman made, and as he was of no weight in the community,' except physical weight —.(laughter and; cheers), he should pass his observations by." If Charles Lamb were alive now, he would begin to fancy that there was something more than pleasantry in his speculations upon the habits and character of the people among whom bis friend Baron Field had cast his lot.