"VERAX" AGAIN.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1670, 19 April 1862, Page 3

"VERAX" AGAIN.

To the Editor of the New-Zealander. Sir,—Whether I, or Mr. "Verax" ought to be regarded as the Chesterfield of polite literature in the worthless controversy, into which he has so causelessly dragged me, it is for your readers to decide;—one thing, I am sure, they cannot fail to admire,—and that is the surpassing modesty, and exquisite good taste which has led Mr. " Venix" to select the New Zealander—a journal with which I have been so long and prominently associated—as the medium of bespattering me with his splenetic, unjust, and anonymous abuse, and that, too, in direct and deliberate infraction of the " Queen's Regulations!" Sir, if there were even the ghost of an argument in the first attack of Mr. " Verax," in his second I can only discern vox sed preterea nihil. In a renewed onslaught, an anonymous Militaire, again approaching under cover of the editorial " we," might have been expected to have turned some of my positions—to have confuted some of my arguments! Has " Verax'' done so? Himself the masked assailant, has he ventured to disprove a single statement I have made? I, unhesitatingly, say he has not; and that himself, the first to indulge in personal invective, he clumsily retorts upon me the lack of gentlemanly forbearance so pre-eminently his own. He puts language in my mouth which I disclaim. He charges me with indulging in sentiments which I indignantly disavow. The " detraction and slander.'' therefore, are his. not mine, and I leave him to their undivided enjoyment. To you, sir,—to my fellow citizens—to the soldiery —who have known mc for the last fourteen years, I confidently appeal whether my pen or my voice has ever been employed otherwise than in advocacy of the honour and advancement of the iuterests of our gallant army. It is for them to determine whether, as " Verax" recklesely asserts, I have ever manifested the slightest disposition "to laud one branch of the service at ihe expense of the other " Newcomes such as " Verax" may thus falsely accuse me; but I have no fear of honourable acquittal upon that count, whether from a military or civil tribunal—" Verax" and his bitter knot of *' we's," perhaps, excepted. To all who can read and comprehend their mother tongue, it must be sufficiently obvious that my voice was raised in vindication not in vilification of the army. I am really grieved that Mr. " Verax" should have found the want of hospitality so intolerable in Auckland, as to induce him to indulge in a second dissertation upon such a subject. It is distressing to see any gentleman'svbrain—or stomach—so cruelly turned on the question of dinners, cooks, and banquets—banquets, dinners, and cooks,—as to cause him to Tavern the tone and temper of a discharged mess waiter ! How is it possible to demonstrate, even to Mr. 'Verax," that there is such a thing as hospitality in Auckland? Ha !—I have it. I will play Curtius for the nonce! If, then, Mr. " Verax" will do me the honour to take a chop with me at Q.C.E.'s, any day he may be pleased to appoint—Tuesdays and Fridays excepted—l will do my utmost to hive the refection " cooked" in the choicest manner of our far-famed " Auckland Luncheon Larder." There, I will endeavour to '• bury all unkindness, Cassius," and should I, u?>on that "jolly" and " hospitable" occasion, approve " Verax" to he the very good fellow, (which I have not the smallest doubt he is) I hereby pledge him my word that, at the next Public Banquer, be it American, French, or British, I will use my most strenuous endeavours to p-o°ure him a ticKet; 60 that he may be able to have full and unchallenged opportunity of favouring the world with his own •' Verax'' ious notions of the Peach Grove, Puketakauere, anl the never tq lie forgiven Wuireka. Tom's, &c,