POLITICAL BLENHEIM.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 50, 28 February 1881, Page 4

POLITICAL BLENHEIM.

The special correspondent of the Lyitelton Times recently paid a flying visit to Blenheim, and promises the readers of that journal an account 6f what he has seen and heard. In the meantime he indulges in the following chaft : — " I have just returned to Wellington from a hrief visit to the extremely pretty little capital of the whilom province of Marlborough. By next mail I shall send you a more de- ; tailed description of the place, and of' ,the pleasant trip across the Straits. As, however, the series of letters, of which this forms one, is devoted mainly to political or quasi-political subjects, I may take this opportunity of disposing of that aspect of my visit. Well, Blen- ' heim is the most political town I was ever in. Everybody — as a politican- — is a rampant ' ring-tailed roarer ;* everybody has a * side,' and belongs to a ' party ;' everybody is either a Liberal or a Conservative ; or, if you come, to the local embodiments of these distinctive principles — everybody is either a Heudersonite or a Seymourite. Whether it was that, as the representative of a journal of a decided political weight, I was considered fair game, or whether it is the normal condition of the Blenheimites, I really cannot say, but I am at any moment prepared to take my solemn oath that I had more ' polities' thrown at me, rammed into my r ears, jammed down my throat, heaped on my devoted head, chucked in my path, spoken, yelled, sworn, and even whistled at me, than during a long, and checkered career I had ever experienced. Why, for politics, Blenheim, on an ordinary day in the middle of a quiet recess, bangs Washington on the eve of a Presidental election. There is only one thing that equals their — shall I call it? — politicalness ; it is their hospitality .< If they do choke you with politics, they give you plenty to wash it down with.