THE LATE R. C. BRUCE.

Evening Star, Issue 16409, 27 April 1917, Page 7

THE LATE R. C. BRUCE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Your article of the 26th, on the late R. C. Bruce, recalled, a visit paid by that gentleman to Dunedin some 50 years ago, on which occasion he addressed a public meeting in, if my memory serves, the Lyceum Hail. During the evening he was subjected to some interruption, 'particularly by a beery-looking individual who eventually, in response to a remark of the speaker, inquired: “What do you know of the working man?” Bruce stopped in his discourse, then eyeing his man for a moment, replied with some vigor : “I have sailed before the mast on all the oceans of the world and on the great lakes of North America, I have worked with the farmers of Ohio and with the lumberers of Maine, T have carried my swag over the sunny plains of Australia and the snow-capped mountains of New Zealand, and the modest competency which I now enjoy has been. m largo measure, hewn by my own hand “' on \ the forests of the North Island. lhats what I know of the working man.” Quoting frem memory, I may have omitted a clause; but, In any case, the reply was as unot'cpectecl as it was convincing, and as an unpremeditated and effective rejoinder it simply brought down the house.—l am, etc., B. April 27.