Our Letter Box.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume III, Issue 105, 28 July 1892, Page 3

Our Letter Box.

[We do not necessarily identify ourselves with the opinions expressed by our correspondents, though, at the same time, we gladly afford space to all communications on matters of public interest to the sporting community.—Ed. Sporting Review.]

THE A.R.C. and MR. MITCHELSON.

(To the Editor Sporting Review.) S IR( —Being a constant reader of your paper, the Sporting Review, I noticed with regret that you delight in the opportunity of firing, not grape and canister, but spurious missile at the late president of the A R.C. —as if you were anxious to provoke a further response from the Honorable gentleman or any other cavalier who may feel in the humour to cross swords or take up arms in his defence.” No doubt, you are aware, Mr. Editor, the good Knight and in my estimation still Honorable, is at the present crisis in the Empire City fighting the battles of our country and his constituency, not in the A.R.C. committee room, but the great political assembly of New Zealand. Mr. Mitchelson may not have time at his disposal to respond to your remarks, and some of your adverse criticisms may have escaped his notice altogether, or maybe, like a wise man, Mr. Mitchelson is fully aware how foolish it would be to attempt to write down a newspaper, knowing that the hollow critic vends his praise to the hollow fools who feed him ; well, I may tell you I do not write for a living—as Burns savs, I write for fun. Perhaps like you, Mr. Editor, “sometimes I fain would lash,” but of that you and the sporting public can judge hereafter if you, Mr. Editor, will publish my remarks upon the point at issue, and in the name of our common liberty I trust you will. There has been little or no correspondence on this subject from the pen of local writers, except the able letter signed “ Vigilarius ” in the Sporting Review of June 23rd, which does the writer credit, and Mr. Marshall’s production likewise good in its way, but requiring a little more powder, and a few additional facts to send it home and break up the fossilised nest which Mr. Mitchelson and Mr. Marshall have lately abandoned. Glory on their spirit and manly pluck ; men who live for the people and not a clique. We want fresh men, we want new blood ; Year after year the same old mud ; Lord, send a spirit, send a flood, And clear them out “ with Boco.” Yours, etc., Native. Auckland, July 25. [Our correspondent’s letter is, like the reply of Mr. Mitchelson (whose cause he professes to champion) a little bit mixed. What “Mr. Marshall’s production ”to which he alludes is, he himself may be left to explain, as also why Mr. Mitchelson is designated “ a worthy knight.” When our correspondent explains these things we shall be pleased to find him or anyone else trying to attempt to “ write down a newspaper.” —Ed. Sporting Review.]