I do not strike them out because they were not true or not well said, but because I find them better said by another man--and a man more competent to testify, too, because he belongs on the ground, and knows.

I clip them from a chatty speech delivered some years ago by Mr.
William Little, who was at that time mayor of Ballarat: "The language of our citizens, in this as in other parts of Australasia, is mostly healthy Anglo-Saxon, free from Americanisms, vulgarisms, and the conflicting dialects of our Fatherland, and is pure enough to suit a Trench or a Latham.

Our youth, aided by climatic influence, are in point of physique and comeliness unsurpassed in the Sunny South.

Our young men are well ordered; and our maidens, 'not stepping over the bounds of modesty,' are as fair as Psyches, dispensing smiles as charming as November flowers." The closing clause has the seeming of a rather frosty compliment, but that is apparent only, not real.

November is summer-time there.
His compliment to the local purity of the language is warranted.