THE LONG EU3H PLOUGHING- MATCH AND DINNER.

Southland Times, Issue 1607, 19 July 1872, Page 3

THE LONG EU3H PLOUGHING- MATCH AND DINNER.

Sib, — In your weekly issue of Saturday last, I noticed a letter signed George Dawson, and dated July 10th. On perusing it, my first impulse was io act on the advice of the wise man — " Answer not a fool according to his folly" — or on the s lying ofthe philosopher of Qreece on the occasion ) of his having been insulted by a foolish fellow — " What ! if an ass should bray at me, must I take him before a judge ? " However, on second thoughts, I resolved to take som; notice of it, lest my silence might be misconstrued. Mr D.'s firstly is — " I think your Long Bush correspondent must have imbibed rather freely of Mr M'Phee's hot ' stuff when he wrote the account of the Long Bush ploughing match and l dinner." Mr D. may play the iole of the ! " unco gude," who delight in marking and telling I "their neibor's fauts ond folly," but such inspection has its limits, which Mr TD. has — in wretched taste — overstepped in penning this sentence. Whether I imbibed at all, or freely, or what, or where, is nothing to bim — I " And 'twould save him a vast many squabbles ! and cares, If he'd trouble his head with his own affairs." I have no doubt Mr D. wrote this part of his letter in deep sorrow, and from a kindly feeling towards me ; and I hope it wili afford him some relief when he is told, that I did not take to wallowing in the mud ; that I walked home without assistance ; and that I did not perpetrate " countless follies," disgracing thereby my good name or professional character. How true is the proverb "that people who live in glass houses should not cast stones." It is plain that Mr D. — like Dominie Sampson — must be | oblivious at times ; a quality which is generally j understood to be characteristic of great minds. ) He forgets that there is such a thing as charity — a virtue which " thinketh no evil" — and which one would expect to find in full development in the people of a district where the virtues, the graces, the learning, the .erudition, and — to complete the climax— the braggadocio, are indigenous to the soil. Mr D. impugns the correctness of the report of the ploughing match and dinner. It is easy to deal in generalities— he ought to have specified what part of the report was erroneous, and, until j he does so, no special reply can possibly be given. Meanwhile the document appended and signed by gentlemen of truthfulness and honor, will convince the mo3E sceptical that the report given by me was substantially correct. Mr Dawson's secondly is — " His statement about the toast of the Queen is entirely of his own imagination." How thankful I ought to be that Mr D. has allowed that I possess such an important mental quality as imagination. That any one could sit down and coolly invent that story about the toast of the Queen, is to me incredible. Possessor of such an inventive genius, I must set about writing an epic poem — of which, or at least ot one of its episodes, I am bound from a sense of gratitude to make Mr D. the hero. The truth is, 1 was not present at the dinner. When I ascertained that ( Mi* D. was to preside, I

knew that the affair woull be a stupid one, and that there would be very little to report of public interest. I had a truslioorlliy substitute there however — a ch'.e'd who took notes — from which, and from tlie corroborative testimony of other Sentlen.e-i who were present, that part of the report was composed. On looking orer these notes, T find more there than Mr P. bargained for, and which, ouf of a kin IW feeling. I did not send |to the press. And so, like Alnaschar's dream in i the Eastern fable, Mr f)'s castle in the air — that j tho report was the work of my imagination — fulls > to the ground, — and, " like the bast-less fabric of a vi-ion, leaves not a wreck behind." What a strange power is that of imijination! 1 can iinaiiirii*, for esample, that Mr D.'-i letter was not wholly composed by himsel' — that it was the joint production of a coterie whi j " ;lay the Queen's English with a poisoned quill,'» and that there is some ulterior object to serve — something m ire than meets the eye — by tlie publication of that mirj.nim opui This is, of course, pure imagination — and would be quite out'of place iv an account of facts, which are said to be — " Chiels that winna ding, .An' downa be disputed." i But it passps out of f lie domain of imnn'mtiin , into thar of probata ity -when it ia noted thllt Mr D.'b letter was not, written at Fr fie Bush, where i he resides, but at Long Bu-di, wliich name, I ' suppose, includes both the Schoolhouse and the j Telegraph-office. There ia a famous line in the Ars Poetica of Horace, viz., — "Parturiunt mon tea, • Da^ce'ur ridi^ulus mus," that is, " The mountain, ' or the clique, in labor, a ridiculous mouse, or the paltry letter of three disjointed sentences, is the result." Mr Dawson's thirdly and lastly, is — " I hope your correspondent, when he again lets people know what takes place in this district, will have more regard to facts than hitherto." And so, si", I have been in the habit of sending you communie itions characterised by little regard to fact ? My connection with tha press is an old story now — and never in any one instance has the veracity lof any of my statements b°en impugned. My motto has ever been — Magna est verita-i et prevalebit, which, as a dictionary may not be at i hand, I will do into English — " Great is truth, j and it shall prevail " In the interests of that same truth, I demand that Mr D., in place of i vague ond general statements, wi'l condescend to point out any communication of mine in which there is a violation of truth or a misstatement of facts. Before Mr D. was so i'l-advised as to rush into print, he should have counted the cost, I and should have been prepared to enter the lists on something better than the animal which brays, and vsith a more powerful weapon than a pointless pin. I beg to tell him, that in all mj correspondence I shall " pursue the even tenor of my way ;" that I shall never lose my ! self respect an t independence so far as to distort facts to plea«e Mr D. ; that T shall never copy the false Christianities of those who evoke tho demons discord, rivalry, and petty stiife, to plague and curse the district ; and that I shall ever give my meed of praise to what is bigh-souled, and great, and honorable, even though it should be | clothed in the **• hodden grey" of the peasant -, I and that I shall ever regard with unfeigned ' contempt everything whicli savors of meanness and snobbishness, even though it should be decked out in the trappings of would-be aristocracy. — I am, &c, TOU K COEKESFONDLESr. Long Bush. T-jly 16 1*72.

We whose names are hereunto annexed, were present at the dinne** of the ploughing match here, and we testify that tae Reporter's account of the Chairman's remarks in proposing the " Queen and Eoyal Family"' is substantially correct. EOBEKT KaMILTOW. A. Eoss. John A. Mitcheil. David Eeidie. M. M'Phee, James M-Kiy. Long Bush, July 13th, 1872.