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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 120, 21 May 1872, Page 2

To the Editor of the Nelson Evening M^tl. . Sir—ln consequence of tbe intimation conveyed in the Colonist of last Friday, that Mr. Luckie was to show us that he had procured a new supply of offensive weapons, I read over the articles and letters in the Colonist this morning expecting to find some pleasing evidence of his youth and strength being restored, but was disappointed to find that he had evidently been unable to procure any lions teeth in this city, and had therefore been unhappily induced to substitute those of some far less noble animal. I am glad to Mr. Luckie thinks my selfesteem so large, as it is an organ that often restrains its posessor from stooping to any degrading expedients, from making unfounded accusations, delusive promises, or in any way forfeiting his highly valued self-respect. I should, however, feel much more flattered if I believed Mr. Luckie to be a better phronologisf, and that he properly understood the meaning of tbe terms he used. To illustrate the natural effect of genuine self-esteem I may remark tbat, if the Editor of the Colonist had possessed it, he would have scorned to write an article against an opponent based on premises which he knew to be incorrect. No one knows better than the Editor of the Colonist tbat I did not assert that the debt had increased a million and a half in one year—but that if Mr. Luckie 1 sfigures were correct it had done, having previously stated that I thought Mr. Luckie's figures were not correct, though far from exaggerated. A man with proper self-respect would not have tried to make his readers understand that his strong denunciation of 1864, quoted by me, were directed against a war expenditure, when he knew that they have on the face of them, the evidence of having been applied to an exdenditure on public works, and public works of n far less reckless and extravagant character than 'hat which Mr. Luckie now considers so prudent and desirable. He would not invent an imaginary correspondence between Mr. Richmond and myself, and affect such an amount of virtuous indignation over a 6tate of things that never existed, and, above all, he would have been careful how he brought unfounded, though very amusing charges against an absent man with reference to Mr. and, I suppose, Mrs. Lightband's " pilgrimage to Canterbury." I am, &c, Alfred Saunders.