Page 6 Advertisements Column 2

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 327, 19 December 1855, Page 6

when on Thursday next you will have to record your votes for the men that really enjoy your confdence. I am, gentbmen, Sec. John o_livi_r. To the Electors of the Christchurch Country District. Brother Electors, — As Mr. Ollivier has thought fit to publish in the " Golden Fleece"' his version of a private conversation which took place between us some time subsequent to that which I quoted in the letter Mr. Hall published last week in the Lyttelton Times, (and which he possibly from forgetfulness confounds with it), I am compelled in selfdefence to reply to him. The truth of the assertions contained in mv letter, published last week, I distinctly re-affirm. As it was merely a conversation passing between a candidate for election and a voter, I conceive I committed no breach of conventional courtesy in repeating it to my friends, or in handing it over for publication when the truth of my account of it had been publicly impugned. The conversation to which Mr. Ollivier alludes in his offensive placard, was simply the private remonstrance of a friend who had until that time been engaged in canvassing for him. Mr. Ollivier has given his version of it. I shall therefore have no delicacy in giving mine. I met him near the Standard Office, and as we walked together on the Sumner road. I toolvthe liberty of remonstrating with him upon the course he was pursuing of treating the electors at the public-houses. He denied the imputation, and to prove it produced his Kaiapoi tavern bill, showing me that he had paid solely for his own refreshment, and at the same time he distinctly assured me that as he never had, so he never would $live so much as a single glass of ale to an C s? O elector ; that he disapproved as strongly as I could of the drinking habits which were gaining ground in the colony, and that if he was returned at all it should be without the assistance of any taVern bills whatsoever. I then said that whatever his private opinion and practice might be, yet it was notorious that the party he was then working with both thought and acted differently, and I certainly did as a friend strongly urge upon him to separate himself from them; and canvass the electors on his own account. He repeated that he disliked that party as much as I did, but said he— *■ much against my will, I have been forced into it; look at this." and he pulled a Lyttelton Times out of his pocket, and pointed out some words in a leading article, referring to "' Political Adventurers," which he considered as in-* lended to apply to himself. I ridiculed the idea of his paying any attention to the article, and th«* absurdity of putting the cap on his own head, —when just at the moment, Mr. Hall rode up on horseback and terminated our conversation. Mr. Hall's arrival prevented my observing as I might have done that Mr. Oiiivier's profession of detestation of the " Nobbier parly " as he calls it was rather inconsistent with the support lie had rendered that party in a recent election,—but doubtless that fact had escaped his memory at the moment Such, brother electors,'are as nearly as possible the exact .'words which passed between us-in that private conversation which Mr. Ollivier has so indiscreetly in my humble opinion brought before the public. For the truth both of this and the former conversation I have of course but my own word lo give. If however, you are willing lo believe the truth of my assertion. I would venture to ask you how far a gentle- | man whose memory is so conveniently short ; while his tongue is so inconveniently long is