GETTING CIVILISED.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1634, 15 September 1887, Page 2

GETTING CIVILISED.

TO THE EDITOR. Rib, —I notice that Mr Rhodes has changed the tone of the circular he has published. He has evidently found out that to say, as he said in his circular, that a working man’s candidate “ smells rank ” is not exactly what is calculated to please the electors. I think Mr Rhodes and his aristocratic supporters might very well allow working men the liberty of judging for themselves as to how their candidate smells. My experience is that what Mr Rhodes considers respectable electors, as well as working men, have felt disgusted at these insinuating allusions. It is very well now for Mr Rhodes to try and wriggle out of responsibility for the low abuse contained in his first publication by saving in the second that Mr

Twomey is a public man and a fit su# ject for criticism. There is a limit to criticism, and the wave of indignation with which the circular was'receivec has doubtless so impressed this fact on the mind of Mr Rhodes that he is not likely to resort to similar tactics the next time he seeks the suffrages of the electors. Mr Rhodes might very well have been satisfied with the extent to which the other papers had descended to publish his anonymous abuse, but evidently these papers, having a charac ter t.) maintain, would not go down to the level he required. He lias now found out that abuse is not statesmanship in the estimation of the electors, and has changed bis tone. But com-

pulsory respectability must always be looked upon with suspicion, and Mr Rhodes mast give further proof of good breeding before we c«n look up to him as a man representative of his class. Let the public compare the odor arising from Mr Rhodes’ publication with Mr Twomey’s dignified address, and say on which side the rank smell is. As to the allusion made to myself with regard to my having said something about political retrievers, perhaps Mr Rhodes will realise that tuere Jexists a more degraded type of the canine tribe, but “ a nod is as good as a wink.”—l am, I etc., I M. ScAHKELL. 1