ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Southland Times, Issue 954, 20 May 1868, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

"WE DO NOT IDEKTIFr OTXBSELYES IN ANT WA? WITH THE OPINIONS EXPBESSED BY OVR OOBRE3PONDENTB. (TO THE EDITOR OP THE SOUTHLAND TIMES). Sir, — A short time before the election of the present Provincial Council, a political squib of considerable merit, but of questionable taste and propriety, headed " Old Lummy," appeared in the columns of the Times. lam aware that the authorship of the effusion was, in some quarters, attributed to me, and although I disclaimed it at the time to, several individuals by whom the subject was mentioned, I did not think it necessary to trouble myself in the matter, believing that like all party effusions, it would soon pass away, and be altogether forgotten, along with the petty excitement inseparable from a contested . election. This, lam sorry to say, is not the case. " Old Lummy " still lives, and my name continues to be associated with it in the minds of many of the community, and, as I am informed, in that of Mr Lumsden himself. It formed the subject of conversation at a meeting of a School Committee the other day ; and so general is the belief that the merit or demerit of the squib belongs to me, that I am obliged, in justice to myself and to the real author of it, to have recourse to the somewhat unusual expedient of declaring this publicly, that I am not the author of " Old Lummy /" that I had no hand whatever in its composition or publication, and that up till the present moment I am entirely ignorant of the author's name. When the fact is known that I have never adopted a norn de plume, and that for the last ten years I have not published in any periodical verses unaccompanied with my initials or my name in full, I expect that in future I will be allowed to pursue the even tenor of my way, undisturbed by the commendation of friends, or the condemnation of foes, who forget that • " They who rob me of my good name, Eob me of that which not enriches them, And make me poor indeed." I am, &c, John Or. Smith. ["We can corroborate Mr Smith's assertions. He was not the author of the effusion in question. Surely Mr Lumsden, by this time, ought to have forgotten all about petty election squibs. He should be above bearing any illfeeling towards .polotical opponents. — Ed. S. T.~]