Banquet to Cantain Russell.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 263, 14 December 1894, Page 2

Banquet to Cantain Russell.

Napier, This Day. Capt. Russell, M.H.R. for Hawke's Bay, was entertained ab a complimentary banquet at Hastings last night. Mr Fitzroy, Mayor of Hastings, presided, and among the guests were Mr W. C. Buchanan and Dr. .Newman, M.H.R.'s. About two hundred people were present from all parts of the district*. In responding to the toast of the evening Captain Russell said that he was not worn out with twenty-five years of political life, and that he was quite willing to go right on for another quarter of a century, doing his best for New Zealand and the constituency" which he represented. As to the political situation he declared that the people had^eutirely neglected the old regular family medical practitioners, being led away by a quack, charlatan, and imposter, the Sequah of New Zealand politics. They had heen carried away by a charlatan with the blast of a trumpet and the banging of a drum, who offered them a box of political pills and who pulled out their teeth to the accompaniment of the trumpet and drum aforesaid, at the same time assuring them that his treatment was nainless. The people had awakened to the fact that they had been to all this discomfort and had paid twenty guineas for the teeth, when if they had kept their own they would have been so much richer. Russell severely criticised the Sergeant-at-Arms appointment and the Pomahaka purchase.