Aldis's views often received anonymous responses, she was called "bereft of all human sympathy", accused of "shriek[ing] against giving the police any power over young girls engaged in the traffic of shame", and her letters were called "balderdash" and "sickly effusions".[20][21][22][23] One respondent even questioned why she had been born, although in contrast a Presbyterian minister was reported to have said "Mrs. Aldis, all the bad men in Auckland hate you".[5][24] Historian J. A. Froude met the Aldises several times, and described them as "of the elect of cultivated man and womankind", and Mary Aldis as "a lady as accomplished and gifted as [her husband]".[7] Other contemporary responses to Aldis's campaigning acknowledged her support for votes for women, and that she was "deserving of commendation for dealing frankly and courageously with social questions affecting the welfare of her sex".[25] It was considered worth noting in The New Zealand Herald that when Aldis signed the Suffrage Petition, she described her occupation as "writer", rather than the more common "domestic duties" or "gentlewoman".[26]