CONSTITUTIONALISTS AND THEIR RED CAT.

Auckland Examiner, Volume 1, Issue 11, 26 February 1857, Page 2

CONSTITUTIONALISTS AND THEIR RED CAT.

Headers of the Examiner need not be {old for they know that we are untrammeiled by party ties ; that we have spoken out with regard to distinguished individuals of both our political parties; and that we have not in any sense len*t our journal to factious men, or used it for factious purposes. By our readers then, except indeed they be such as look at everything through the medium of political passions, what we are about to say will not be misunderstood, or charged upon us as a departure from the strictly Impartial path on which we profess at all times to travel. Constitutionalists ascribe in large part, if not altogether, to the ex-Provincial Secretary their political mischances, defeats, and humiliations. They would have h » believe him Me holes turned politician, and that poor be-devilled Mr. Speaker is a sort of political Faust with the arch fiend ever ready to say, Here I am at yotir elboiv. Descending from the sublimely poetic to the ridiculously commonplace, we indulge oursehes in an anecdote. There was an old woman who had a red cat. She also had a servant who, not being legally responsible for breakage as Councillor Brodie wishes all servants to be, smashed, in rapid succession, cups, saucers, dishes, and other smashable things. As each article, was smashed Molly protested ;hr.t the red cat had done it. Her mistre is ordered said red cat to -be killed. St 11 sm i shing' was the order of every day. cM illy,i lain questioned, again blamed the !<at. tier mistress stared incredulously

and then reminded Molly that the red cat, being dead, couldn't very well have smashed the crockery. But Molly stuck to her text, and accounted for what her mistress deemed Lttle short of miraculous by referring to the well authenticated that every cat has nine good lives at least. Now, we are attentive readers of whatever appears in that wise journal the “ New Zealander,” although we are often as much puzzled by it as was a certain Bishop who thought highly of Gulliver’s Travels but guarded himself against anv charge of excessive credulity by the candid avowal that there were some things in it he could not believe. In like manner, we praise the “ New Zealander,” although unable to believe quite all that we read in that veracious journal. Nevertheless its conductors are, sans doute, all “ nice men ” who discredit, by their honorable dealings and strict regard for truth, Swift’s impertinent maxim—that nice people are people with nasty ideas. On Hugh Carleson these nice politicians have no mercy. He is their red cat. Whatever may be politically amiss, they straightway clap it upon the red cat. What the scape-goa ’.was for “sham - Abram Israelites,” the red cat is to genuine Constitutionalists. If jobs are perpetrated, or, what is far worse, job perpetrators exposed, the red cat and the red cat alo ae has been to blame. According to them, that unwelcome “sojoirner” has a paw in every pie—is at the bottom of every mischief—gets into every cabal — hatches, or scratches, every political conspiracy'—and addles every political egg. Although the actual dead lock and prospective eternal smash are their own political handiwork, these nice politicians openly charge them upon the red cat. Yes! the red cat has done it all. Like smashing Molly, they insist upon making the red cat responsible for breakages And if unfortunately their red cat was knocked on the head, we verily believe that, taking a leaf from Molly’s book, they would fall back upon the tenaciousness of life peculiar to cats, and still make their political red cat responsible for all political mishaps.

Constitutionalists of this nice breed seem ignorant that theia abuse of Hugh Carleton, and silly attempt, to fix upon him responsibilities fairly chargeable upon themselves, have an effect quite other than they suppose. Senseless attacks are simply contemptible. Spiteful attacks are simply disgusting. Waspish writers who lie without regard to either weight or measure are soon found out, and then—why then if they chance to speak truth, the odds are that people will disbelieve them. A party writer who systematically exaggerates the vices while depreciating no less systematically the virtues of an opponent, speedily loses all credit even with those he wishes to serve, and sooner or later will find himself in “ fix” similar to that of the boy who cried “wolf, wolf,” in vain when the wolf did come, because he had so often (lymgly) called “ wolf, wolf,” when the wolf did not come.

A politician with every virtue under heaven and upon the face of whose character there is neither flaw nor spect, would indeed be curious and well worth looking at. But while dubious as to the existence of faultless monsters that the world ne'er saw, we take leave to more than doubt the reality of so convenient an animal as the red cat of the Constitutionalists.