A totally different picture comes to us from Aston Manor, as I judge from the following letter in the Birmingham Daily Gazette.
WHAT HAS BECOME OF IKE WARD?
To the Editor of the Daily Gazette.
Sir,—My attention has been drawn to an attack made by Captain Grice-Hutchinson on a very respectable member of the National Society of Amalgamated Brassworkers, Mr. Ike Ward. In your yesterday's issue Captain Grice-Hutchinson is reported to have said: "The last authentic account he had of Mr. Ike Ward was that he was 'bones' in some nigger troupe on the sands of Scarborough." Mr. Ward has been for some time engaged as an organiser, and is a member of the Executive of the Railway Workers' Union, has never been in a nigger troupe on the sands of Scarborough or anywhere else.
As the statement is calculated to damage the reputation of my friend Mr. Ward, I am sure that the candidate for Aston will at once either give his authority for the damaging statement or withdraw the aspersions on the character of a respected labour leader.—Yours faithfully,
W. J. Davis.
70, Lionel Street, Birmingham, July 13.
But after all, even if Mr. Ike Ward had chosen to employ his leisure in performing on the bones in a nigger troupe on the sands at Scarborough or elsewhere he would have done nothing to be ashamed of. Obviously, however, Captain Grice-Hutchinson's account was anything but authentic, and he had no business to cork Mr. Ward's face in so gratuitous a manner.
'Tis a manifest error, this tale about bones—
(You may like what I say, or, if not, you may lump it).
For a worker in brass must produce the best tones
If—I don't say he did it—he blew his own trumpet.
In any record of electoral humour Mr. Muntz, the member for Tamworth, must hold a distinguished place. Here is a report of some of the remarks made by him at meetings in the Nuneaton Division:—
Mr. Muntz, in the course of his remarks, characterised Lord Salisbury's Government as the most able Administration that had ever held office in any Parliament the world over. It was composed of all the great intellect which, prior to the introduction of the Home Rule Bill, was divided between the two great parties of the State. Now all that was left to the Liberal party was the tagrag and bobtail. The late Radical Administration was a failure under Mr. Gladstone, great man as he was, and a still greater failure under Lord Rosebery, to whom Her Majesty had presented the Thistle. (Laughter.) As to agriculture, he said that he had a conversation with Mr. Chamberlain on the subject just before the dissolution. Mr. Chamberlain said to him, "Muntz, what are we to do for agriculture?" and he replied, "That's a big question. You have all the great talent and all the great landed interest in the country represented in the present Government; and if the present Government can do nothing for agriculture, there is nothing to be done for agriculture." (Applause.)