The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1914. THE BATTLE OF RED HERRINGS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 7, 29 April 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1914. THE BATTLE OF RED HERRINGS.

While ono could hardly assort that there was "a smack of the salty sea" about the Mayoral meeting in the Town Hall hist night, there were most unmistakable whiffs of Billingsgate in the air, and red herrings floated freely and frequently across the horizon from all points of the compass. There were whole barrels of this notorious Ash emptied out on the stage and hull-floor, and some of them were as smellifvuous as an ancient lentert cod from Newfoundland. Tho acrobatic performances also of the homely redherring, according to some gentlemen jwho proffered their light and leading to a much-tickled crowd, were quite unique, and in ono notable instance it was solemnly affirmed that a particularly knowing fish, while being dragged across a scent, actually recoiled! With such proceedings it was hardly possible to take anyone or anything very seriously: even really serious people who wore not out for joking were laughed to scorn when they stood up seriously to say what they seriously meant. There were legions of intorjectors of all shapes and sizes, from the small boy at the back to the common nuisance somewhere else: and the statements made from tho body of the building were about as varied as regards their range of reliability: they ran with fancy free. There were spiteful people and there were humourists amongst the crowd—and there was the candidate. We should have liked him better if ho had left unsaid some of the purely personal things he did say, but his excuse must be that be was being badly heckled by some of Mr Kirkwood's doughtiest henchmen, though we do not for one moment associate .Mr Kirkwood with all tho folly his friends might bo guilty of. Dr. Paget, for instance, a worthy supporter of Mr Kirkwood to-day, would be too much for any candidate to swallow whole: tho recoiling \»i h»rring would not b« half s« upsetting, so •lusira, tricky and uncertain, as that trifling person b«-

comes when personal animus actuates him to take a side. His object is usually so transparently on the surface, though he may. ostrich-like, bury his head in wordy subterfuge, that the laugh is more often against than with him in his public utterances. Many times the audience laughed last night when Dr. Paget exploded his little bunch of crackers, and amongst other random statements made the assertion that the men controlling the Electrical Supply Company control the "Stratford Evening Tost." The allegation is untrue, and Dr. Paget ought to know it.. But it is this sort of thing winch discounts a speaker's other utterances. Public men and their supporters should bo above the pettiness of personal spleen towards individuals who may be associated with public concerns. Unfortunately they are not always so, and the Mayoral campaign in Stratford of this year may well be written down as the "Battle of lied Herrings."