THE ELLIOTT-CLEMENTS CASE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17157, 9 November 1917, Page 7

THE ELLIOTT-CLEMENTS CASE.

Sib,—While no one can find fault with Trooper Clements for protecting his dead sister's honour, there is every cause to express sympathy with tho Rev. Howard Elliott in the suffering he has endured as a result of the brutal attack made upon him recently. I have no desire to uphold Mr Elliott's action in casting an aspersion on tho chastity of tho deceased nun, but I do wish to condemn most emphatically tno mode of rovengo that Trooper Clements and his two assistants saw fit to follow. It is certainly not what ono expects from a soldier who has loarnt to " play tho game. —I am, etc.,. November 7. Bmtishkb. [There -was no civil remedy under the law against tho slanderer.—Ed. 0 D T.J Sik—Undoubtedly Trooper Clements was doing what any Britisher would do in protecting his sister's honour, but no one, least of all a Britisher, could say \hat three to one is fair play. If Trooper Clements wished to vindicate his dead sister's honour, then I think that most rational beings will agree with me that he should have adopted other methods than thrashing with a whip an unarmed man, and one who, if rumour speaks correctly, was not in the best of health. I should think that a returned boldier has had plenty of opportunities of learning that Britishew do not fight three to one. —I am, etc, November 7. Faib Plat. Sih, —" Indignant" declares that the name of the Rev. Howard EHiott has been insulted forsooth 1 Prithee, how could one, by any possible or impossible chance, insult tno name- of a person who stoops to attack the dead? "What appears to me rather odd is that our men are fit only to die for us. If they return they prove "a menace to the country." We cheer them as they go away —are we to hoot them as they return? Surely, surely your correspondent has no men of her awn away! Are they "conscientious" objectors, I wonder, or only "necessary to the welfare of the community"? As one whose only brother has been twice wounded, and is now lying ill in hospital, it is rather disappointing (to say the least of it) to know that it is in defence of such as "Indignant" that he has suffered. For myself I feel mere words cannot ex press the debt we owe to those who have endured so nobly in safeguarding us. And, let me ask, if that which they nave passed through has perchance hardened them, to whom, then, should they look for comfort, and who is to exert a softening influence on their lives if it be not the women ii their honfeland?—l am. etc., November 6. Lest We Fought.

Sib, —The grief-stricken mothers of New Zealand deserve something better than that such things as "Indignant" -wrote should be said of the brave lads who are spared to come home again. Just as the rain falls on the unjust as well as the just, so thece boys have to .fight and die for the freedom of those that slander them as yell as for those whom they love. " Half-muddled!" Ah! The poor feDow without arms or legs, or the man painfully creeping along the street on crutches and will never be able to straighten his back again, or those that have for ever lost the power of sight, or the thousand others who have been maimed have had enough to make them so; yet I venture to suggest that not one of them can be persuaded to talk of bloodshed. Time for your correspondent to be indignant, when men stand by and hear a woman slandered and 6ay nothing.—l am, etc., Wm. Oxlkt. November 6. [We do-- not think it necessary; to continue a correspondence on this subject.—Ed. O.D.T.]