A HAPPY EMBLEM.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 348, 6 November 1875, Page 2

A HAPPY EMBLEM.

Westminster; Palace Hotel, London, July 19th, 1871.—1 have just come from a meeting where I have a pretty row with the Attorney-General of Australia. The meeting was that of a Colonial Society, and took place in the large hall of this hotel. In seconding a vote of thanks to Jenkins—author of ' Ginx's Baby \ —l. made some remarks touching the colonies as a field for our ragged schoolchildren, which were greatly cheered. Alter me came said Attorney-General, who opposed the idea of sending out, as he chose to characterise my proposition, "the scum of the country to the colonies.!' This set up my birse. I waited till he was done, then rose and gave him an answer. My finisher, the coup de grace, was furnished by a sheet of paper lying on the table before the Chairman (the Duke of Manchester). Seizing it, I held it out before the meeting, by that time pretty well wrought up in sympathy with myself saying, " This was once the- ' scum ' which the gentleman charged me with wishing to introduce into the colonies—once foul, dirty, wretched rags. ' In it—now white as the snows of heaven—this gentleman (who spoke, I believe, in sheer ignorance of the subject), may see an emblem of the material we would send to the colonies, of the work

our ragged-schools have achieved." So, tossing down the paper, and bowing to the Dulce amid the cheers of the audience, taken by surprisie, and manifestly pleasedwith this illustration, I left thankful to God that I was ready-witted enough for the occasion, the last. words I heard as I left the room to scribble off this letter being, _ " Well done, Guthrie!" (To xMrs. Guthrie). —•' Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie, D.D. -