THE WAIMEA DINNER.
To the Editor of tiie Nelson Evening Mail. Sik — Absence from town has hitherto prevented my replying to the letter of Captain Blundell on the above subject, which appeared in your issue of the Sth instant, having reference to my communication of the previous day. Any comment •would be superfluous on' ( tl>e obvious attempt which the writer makes in that communication to geb out of his dilemma by the very commonplace expedient of bluster and insinuation of • scandalous falsehood.' or on the strange mental obfuscation under which he appears to labor as to the requisite qualifications of a gentleman, since he asserts in one portion of a paragraph the impossibility of my replying to his tetter \' in a gentlemanly way,' and in the next tells me 'in a manly, honest, straightforward manner' to state my grounds of complaint ! lie does not attempt to deny that some of the officers of the Volunteer Companies were intentionally uninvited to the dinner, and this is precisely wliat I asserted as the reason why the other officers did not avail themselvesof the opportunity of feeding with ' Blundell's Lambs.' That this was notoriously the easel need not recall to the memory of your readers. Captain Blundell, in spite of his quotation from the drill instructions (!), is, I fear, still very ignorant of military usages, -when he attempts to justify such invidiously exceptional treatment of his brother officers. I would call to his recollection that only a few months ago a paragraph went the round of the colonial papers, which certainly showed that in Kegiments of the Line, at all events, a very different feeling exists. I allude to an invitation to a ball at Government House, Hobarton, forwarded to the officers stationed in that city, and intentionally excluding one of their* number. This invitation was declined by every officer of the detachment, exclusion of their brother officer being assigned as the cause of their non-acceptance. 1 am sure your readers will agree with me in their appreciation of the slight which has been thus gratuitously put on some of the most popular officers of the Volunteer Companies, an accusation which Captain Blundell declines to refute, although I might remind him that he has to deal with facts and not with shadows. The intention or the origin of this affront can only be arrived 1 at through a review of past circumstances, and, viewed through that medium, they will be easily discoverable by most people. Yours, &c, VOLUSTTEEK. Kelson, January 11, 1868.
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Bibliographic details
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 10, 13 January 1868, Page 2
Word Count
419THE WAIMEA DINNER. Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 10, 13 January 1868, Page 2
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