with the contempt his anonymous scurrility deserves; though, in justice to me, I am sure you will give my answer to his letter of last week. I feerlessly(sic) throw myself on the good feeling of the community that surrounds me and leave it to them to decide whether it is or is not a gross infringement of that law of liberty under which we happily live for a man whose name is not given to offer another whose name is given, the public insults conveyed both directly and indirectly in a letter written by one who signs himself “Let-well-alone”. In the opinion of your correspondent nothing can be well, for he never will let anything alone. Did the necessity for my remarks in your impression of the week before last require proof, it was abundantly furnished by the letter which immediately preceded mine signed with the same signature, which letter was written of course while I was writing mine; consequently, before I could have known its tenour.... As I am threatened with further attacks from Mr. “Let-well-alone” I repeat that my time is far too valuable and too much occupied to be taken up by supplying him with that weekly potion of excitement upon which his being well seems to depend. It really requires almost as great amount of moral courage to give open expression to an independent opinion on any subject in some of our petty principalities at home, nowadays as it once required in the petty principality of Bomba, himself. For the sake of the elucidation of truth, I deeply regret that such should be the case and with the expression of that regret, I subscribe myself yours faithfully, J. Alton Hatchard.”
The Editor’s Resolve. – “We have now allowed Mr. Hatchard to reply to the remarks of ‘Let-well-alone’, not connected with the Harbour question, and now decline further insertion of any more communications (from either party) if they are not free from the personal matter that has recently been introduced into them.”
Two Different Natures. It has been stated that the above named disputants were both good men; but they were as opposite as well could be in their physical constitutions, their individual temperaments and their political creeds. Mr. Montgomery was an invalid and an ardent Conservative, who wrote much and under a nom de plume, whilst Mr. Hatchard was a robust clergyman and a Liberal politician, whose desire for popularity induced him on all occasions to attach his real name to whatever he communicated to the press. The former gentleman established at his own expense an Invalid Industrial Kitchen and Ladies’ Home, contributed liberally to charitable and philanthropic institutions, and kept an almost open house to persons who were really in distress. The latter gentleman, as indicated even by his own letters, was at the time seeking for profitable invest-
