The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1867.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 36, 13 February 1867, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1867.

It lias beeu reported pretty freely in towu (luring the last day or two, that in all probability Mr. Blackett will not contest the electiou for the office of Superintendent, by going to the poll. We simply give the rumour as it has reached us, aud suggest that Mr. Blackett take esrly steps to coutradict if, if it is not founded on fact. The report may be a mere stratagem of his opponents to damage his election, which -.vas considered by his friends to be certain, if any faith was to be placed in a requisition numerously and influentially signed, as the phrase goes. The wish may be father to the thought on the part of those who spread the rumour, and the best way to silence it would be for Mr. Blackett to hold a puhlic meetiug, express his views, aud declare his intentions. Should Mr. Blackett prefer holding his present office, in wbich he is widely and deservedly respected, to encountering the difficult duties that await him in a new and untried sphere, it would excite no surprise, however much it might annoy the large following who look to him as the coming man, and please the friends of the two remaining candidates. We are only chronicling, however, the chit-chat of the passing hour, and attach no further importance to the rumour than that it may turn out to be an electioneering dodge had recourse to to damage a political opponent. Should the rumour be founded on fact, and Mr. Blackett be disinclined to seek the honours and labours of a positiou which would involve payiug a greater amount of deference to the wishes of a band of supporters than consulting his own interests, the electors would know, or rather would not know what to do with the two remaining candidates, Mr. Curtis and Mr. Barnicoat. The views of these gentlemen are so much alike on most of the leading questions of the day, that the contest would become rather a personal than a political one. They nre both strongly in favor of a railroad, and the question to be decided would be, which would be able to exert the greater amount of interest in procuring the longed for desideratum. They do not differ widely on the all absorbing question of Provincialism, except that Mr. Barnicoat is supposed to feel more strongly in its favour than Mr. Curtis does. The latter has allowed a tolerably wide margin for the absorption of Provincial institutions, and he might possibly be induced to promise that he would not, vote for their destruction for the next fceven years afc least. This would give the Government officers, whose interests are at stake a little time to set their house in order, and prevent them being too rapidly swallowed up in the Avhirlpool created by Mr. Stafford and his myrmidons. In fact there is not so much difference between Mr. Stafford and Mr Barnicoat, as to lead to a very exciting contest and the electors may well be puzzled to adjudicate on their respective merits. We can understand a number of the free and independent being sadly unconscious of the part they ought to take, and to say or rather sighHow happy we'd be with either Were t'other dear charmer away. But all this may be mere imagination, and one stroke of Mr. Blackett's powerful pen, and one sentence uttered by his influential voice, may destroy the little game of Messrs. Curtis and Barnicoat. Not being favored with the confidence of the gentlemen who pull the ropes ia these electoral arrangements we can only reason on the data that is placed before us, which, it must be admitted, is not of a very lucid kind. • • ' '