THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ELECTION.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 586, 27 November 1869, Page 2

THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ELECTION.

(To the Editor of the Westport Times.) Sib, —No person familiar with Mr O'Conor's ordinary style will be surprised at the manner in which, excited by a contested election and elated by an unexpected victory, he abused, in defiance of taste, decency, and veracity,his real andimaginaryenemies, or at the insolent presumption with which he imputed dishonorable, not to say "diabolical," motives to men, at least, as straightforward aa himself. Such expressions as "demoniac efforts," "diabolical envy and revengeful spite," " the demon of discord and party feeling," applied to men whose sole crime consists in opposing Mr O'Conor, can excite no feelings but contempt and derision—unless that of pity for the unfortunate Provincial Councillors—the future victims of Mr O'Conor's scurrilous invective. Mr O'Conor probably considers himself a heaven-born legislator—he certainly believes that any opposition to him originates in a very different

quarter. His charge against his opponents might be expressed in the form of an old indictment—" that they, not having the feue of G-od before their eyes, but at the instigation of the devil, feloniously, wickedly, and of malice aforethought did " vote against E. J. O'Conor. But, crammed as his speech is with clap-trap, the greatest farce of the whole is his fervid denunciation of the policy ofpitting Addison's Flat against the Terraces—a policy notoriously initiated by himself, and to which he owes his position on the poll on Wednesday. Did not he, long before the production of the obnoxious placard, inform the electors of Addison's that he was in the minority at the Caledonian, and that it was only by their plumping for him that he would be returned ? I cordially agree with Mr O'Conor as to the atrocity of stirring up national and religious feelings for party purposes, and as to the propriety of the punishment he suggests ; but I am anxious to see the iniquity fathered in the proper quarter ; and I believe that if Mr O'Conor transplants to the Nelson Council those flowers of oratory which have distinguished him in Westport, it will not be long before public opinion inflicts on him the moral, if not physical castigation which he refers to, as the just meed of a political incendiary. Asmodeus. [The election is over—Mr O'Conor is the elected of the majority—and we do not desire to see piolonged discussion either on the creditable or contemptible features of past events. The declaration speeches of newly elected members are, however, fair subjects for comment, and we have no right to restrict it, whether relating to one candidate or another. It is only in consideration of this principle, and of the impossibility of the letter reaching us sooner, that we admit the foregoing expression of individual opinion.]