CAPT. FRASER AND THE WEST COUNTRY DIALECT.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 113, 19 February 1872, Page 3

CAPT. FRASER AND THE WEST COUNTRY DIALECT.

To the Editor of the Thames Guardian. Sir, —I sen by the report of the case of OTlea v. Radford, that the Resident Magistrate made use of the following expression, “ That if the men employed to search could not speak English,they should be furnished with a glossary,” or words to that effect. I know the defendant, and can vouch for the distinctness of his conversation. He speaks good English, as can be verified by his remarks in Court, and is a man of somewhat superior education. Why the Resident Magistrate should have' gone out of his way thus to attack in an uncalled for manner the education of a defendant, I am at a loss to know. The general bearing and conversational powers of West-Coountrymcn in general arc far superior to the majority of those who hail from the land o’ cakes, — the country, I presume, of the Resident Magistraie,—ami who, in numbers of instances, require the aid of an interpreter to make thoir ideas known. But if the object of the Resident Magistrate in this case was to hold up the industrious WestCountrymen to ridicule, he has signally failed in his object.—l am, &c.,

West-Countryman