THE HON. W. FOX IN ENGLAND.

West Coast Times, Issue 3220, 20 January 1876, Page 2

THE HON. W. FOX IN ENGLAND.

The Hon. William Fox, writing from Plymouth, England, under date 30th October, 1875, alluding to bis labors on behalf of the temperance movement, says : — '" He has visited the chief cities of Scotland, some of Ireland, and several parts of England, and in the course of his journeying has addressed 75,000 to 100,000 people. Alhough the meetings were invariably well attended, the Press in general did not give a good idea of what was done.' 1 As regards the " reports," Mr Fox >ays, '• Pray do not believe anything you will see. I used among others to complain of Colonial reporting, but here it is, except in the leading London papers, infinitely worse, and where the speaker is rapid, as I am unfortunately, and the subject one on which reporters are ignorant, as they mostly are on the Temperance movement, they make a disgusting hash of what one says. In my case they jumble up what I say of the United States with what I say of New Zealand, and anyone in New Zealand who reads their reports of ray speeches will think I am telling most awful and unblushing lies. I have repeatedly been reported as saying that Prohibition in New Zealand has been an immense success, has swept away ninetenths of the drinking, &c, &c, which will astonish my friends in the Colony. These things have been said of Maine or Vermont, which, in their ignorance I suppose, the reporters think are in New Zealand." Mr Fox says : — " We have had the very worst weather I ever saw in my life — incessant rain, storms, drizzle, fog, and moisture, I have at least ten big colds, one on the top of the other, quite distinguishable in cha* racter — my Greenwich-cum-Glasgow cold, my Dundeee cold, my Aberdeen-cum-Edinburgh do, my Great Northern Railway do, my Manchester-oum-Bolton-cum-Preston-cum-Staley Bridge do, my Dublin special cold and sore throat, my Carlow relaxed uvula, my Waterford bronchitis, and about a dozen more and with all this on the lungs having to address assemblages of from 1000 to 7000 }ia the *rand halls which adorn most of the big cities. But everybody is much in the same condition, and seems used to it, ' How's yonr cold,' they say, as if it was a possession and belonged to a man, and so indeed it is. It is not only in England. A newspaper correspondent from Italy writes that 'Lake Como is like Blackwall in a fog; the Kmperor of Germany has gone to bed with a cold in hi« head, in the middle of a 'great political progress.'" Inert s are worn places in the world than Dunedm it would seem, notwithstanding our continual dripping.