IS THIS A FREE FIGHT STRANGER?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 78, 3 April 1871, Page 2

IS THIS A FREE FIGHT STRANGER?

Lector ci auditor nostras probat , Luckie, libelhs .- Scd quidam exactos esse poela ncgat. Noii nimium euro : nam ccvncc fercula nos trie Malim convivis quam placuissc cocis. As the schoolmen say. To the Editor op the Nelson Evening Mail. Sir — Our worthy fellow-citizen, Mr. Dodsou, little thought when he threw out, at the Board of Works meeting, a suggestion, touching the too luxuriant growth of the trees over our sidewalks, what a great matter that little spark would kindle, and how nearly his name would become allied to that of Fog. During the course of the Jong correspondence which his remarks have called forth, we hare/'' learned many things, the most startling of all, to my mind, being the hypothesis or postulate (I scarce know now which to call it) of " Sere' and yellow leaf" that " beer" may be^' wrung drop by drop from a reeking bc4*w." For fear of misinterpreting the-writer, I shall quote the context : — <{ So shall * * * the weary wayfarer in the dog-days quaff an extra pint of thine Entire in thy honor, not wrung drop by drop from his reeking brow, but cheerfully rendered with mirth, solemu and sepulcural, as beseems the city of tlie Dead." If this he true, we have here, by the simple changing of a letter, the origiu of the word brewer. I do not possess a IVcbsfcr, but I have^no doubt that some equally enterprising colonial Dictionary maker will hereafter deline " brewer" to be a man who sheds beer from his brow. Apart from its didactic element, the letter of " Sere and yellow leaf" was witty and most amusing, and, as — II riy a que la verite qui offense — Anglo-Saxon, with the pugnacity of his race, and the avidity of a Yankee for a free fight, steps in aud has a hit out all around ; " Sere and yellow leaf" is crumpled up, aud told to be gone ; a luckless printer's devil who, in the melee, trod upon Anglo Saxon's pet corn, is requested to tread also upon the tail of his coat, and tell who Cincinnator was, or he would know the reason why ; and, finally, cursing his stars and exclaiming "Is this a dagger that I see before me ? " this modern Macbeth abandons the columns of the Colonist for the more congenial battle ground of the Evening Mail, where he may carry on his logomachy free from those phantasms of a disordered author's faucy, the stars and daggers of the editorial P.D. I am, &c, Tilbuiiv Fout.