Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 380
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[Page 380]
3.
wounded, & has been advocating conscription for which he has been duly turned out of the Labour Party, & this will of course cost him his seat at Leichhardt at the next election. He is now out recruiting for a second thousand to bring to France. He got his first thousand when he went over for the first time, and I am free to confess that I think he has turned out one of the best men in the public life of Australia. This reminds me that Edmund Jowett M.P. has evidently not heard of your Military Cross, otherwise he would have been sure to send his congratulations. Judge Gavan Duffy only heard of it when he came to Sydney with the High Court last week, & then he wrote to us at once. Clare Leary also wrote to Mother with congratulations the other day. Her sister Mrs. Merewether is back in Sydney again. Andy Stuart, A.B. Triggs (of Yass) Mrs. George Kiss, Miss McCarthy, the J.J. Cohens, & heaps of other people still keep sending congratulations, so you see you are still in the Boom! We saw Mrs McCrae & Nita in the tram today. I suppose someone has told you that poor Nita got through her 'post' the other day, & is now Nita B.A. at last.
The usual Easter performances are over now, & there were about half a million people at the Agricultural Show. I think the recruiting people got about fourteen volunteers out of that crowd! There was a Revue by amateurs (the usual crowd of what George Gilhooley called "Society girls") & a Dance at the Sydney Town Hall, both of which events roused the unbounded wrath of your mother & father. Of course the money went to some war fund, but we felt very strongly that this was no time for such performances, & evidently many other people thought & spoke as we did because the "Mirror" spoke last week of the "churls" who grudged some enjoyment to our young people. You know things are very different here to what they are in England. There everyone is doing his share in