Splores Of A Halloween, Twenty Years Ago

PREFACE.


The following verses were sent to compete for the prize offered in
October last, by the Montreal Caledonian Society, for the "best poem on
Halloween." They were not successful; and some may be ready to ask, "Why
then publish them?" It may be sufficient to reply, "I choose to do so;"
"I choose to appeal from the award of the Judges to the decision of the
public." A single sentence will explain why I make such an appeal. The
gentlemen appointed to act as judges based their decision, according to
their published statement, as much upon "suitability for recitation at a
public festival," as upon "literary merit." Had this been stated in the
advertisement inviting competition it would have been all right. But it
is very evident that all poems which might be judged unsuitable for such
recitation, would necessarily be excluded from competition, whatever
might be their "literary merits," and the successful production could
only be that which among the "suitable" was regarded as possessing the
greatest literary excellence. It is on this ground--and not because I
could be so vain as to think that my production _ought_ to have received
the prize, while I was altogether unacquainted with not a few others
which may have been rejected on the same principle--that I complain of
the award of the Judges, and that I now appeal from that award by this
publication.

A poem may be very well suited for recitation at a public festival, and
possess very slight claims to any literary merit, while another
indefinitely superior might not in such circumstances be suitable for
recitation at all.

With the public I now leave the decision, and shall cheerfully acquiesce
in its award whether favourable or the reverse.

A. D.

Woodstock, C. W., Jan., 1867.