POOR ARGUMENTS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12647, 7 November 1905, Page 7

POOR ARGUMENTS.

To the Editor

Sir, —If during the course of an argument one opponent were suddenly and ■without provocation to rise up and hit the other in the mouth, in order to stop unpalatable words, it would show to all right-thinking observers that the aggressor's argument must ihave had the knocked out of it. I wouldn't cay that the striking was wrong, nor even that it was ungentlemanly; but it must be concluded tibat the on© adop%dng fiucfh tactics has a very poor opinion of the largument he thus tries to empihasise. These remarks are called forth. »y *bhe mud-slinging (I use the term in (both its literal and -figurative senses) resorted to 'by the Liquor partisans on Saturday nigfht last, on the occasion of tihe open-air No-License meeting. These people, seeing tih'at the argument was decidedly against them, resorted to tactics rwhaoh won't lby any means "square wrJt)h their favourite cry -anent "the liberty of the subject/ Beaten on every point, they itried such arguments (?) as mud-t&mrwing, orange-throwing, and the like. Now, I won't venture to say that the proceedings were wrong, unBritish, or even ungentlemanly; but I insist "that the people using such tactics must feel that their argument is "pretty sick."—l am, etc. JAS. HARPER.