OUR SUPERINTENDENT AND HIS PROMISES.

Auckland Examiner, Volume 1, Issue 33, 30 July 1857, Page 3

OUR SUPERINTENDENT AND HIS PROMISES.

I hake no pretensions to purism, and certainly am disinclined to cant on matters sexual. Hut as a certain scribe in the pay of Superintendent Williamson did -some time since attempt to damage a highly respectable and very able public officer by statements calculated to exritepublic prejudice, I cann it remain silent. Superintendent Williamson is not one of our political chickens. If a “new churn" he might be supposed the dupe and victim rather than the incitor and abettor of those he employs to kill character. Seeing, what all readers of his newspapers see, I am compelled to think him resol’ed upon the systematic and utterly reckless defamation of every public officer whom he believes unfavorable to his Government. Who but himself need be told that John Williamson, setting on Calf Cato to lecture the public officer in question about his Maori connexion, makes no less queer a figure than Satan sexting on his favorite imp to reprove sin.

Unless singularly and unaccountably ignorant, Superintendent Williamson must know that charges of illicit intercourse with Maori women have been made against some bosom friends of his, and that the ablest exponent •of his policy as well as stoutest prop of his Government stands accused of having, within Auckland citizen recollection, shown himself quite “a gallant, gay, Lothario” among Maori women. The fatted Calf might have learned from its resoectable parent the spatted Cow that this Provincial Government Lothario had no objection to go snacks in a Seraglio no Maori-woman-inclined Turk would curl his lip at; also that Mrs. Scott was one of the paie faced married ladies he was charged with having a knavish itch for, and being very sweet unon. Such subjects 1 like not to meddle with ; but the Superintendent’s little newspaper having endeavored to injure a politically opposed public officer by charging adultry upon him, I wish the public to know that the charge came from a queer source. Two blacks do not make s. white, but accusers of the Calf family would do well to remember what a Ifivine nersonnge said to certain Pharasees who were stoning the woman taken under peculiar circumstances. Governor Grey encouraged the illicit intercourse of European men and Native women. It was part of bis policy. In carrying out that policy he thought more of the politically expedient than the morally right. Im; erial sanction was given to concubinage, and adultery was winked at. Officials Were none the less respectable because they sexually associated with Native women. From such Governor Grey withheld not the light of his ■couiitonance, and Governor Grey was a great man. At all events he represented Imperialism, and if neither “ the gloss of fashion” nor “ mould of form” was the worshipped of many Auckland worshippers. It is related of some quaint joke-loving old preacher that in course of a sermon he much enlarged upon the ■sin of fornication and said, at same time suiting action to the word by raising his arms, —I will throw this STONE AT THE HEAD OF THE FORNICATOR I SEE BEFORE jib—whereupon every male member nf his congregation, disanpeared in his pew like a wooden Jack in his box, as if cieh t.l ought the stone was intended for his own *• cock loft.” Had a large congregation of our citizens assembled in Governor Grey’s halcyon days to hear some preacher who should threaten in similar style to that quaint old joker of olden times, I wonder how many wou’d have played Jack in the box by bobbing down the head.

I never admired the reasoning of a silly sophist who by suicide ended “ life’s fitful fever” upon the ground that what Cato did and Addison approved must NEEDS be right. Of course, therefore, I am far from contending that such sexual associations as I have j ust glanced at were right because notabilities formed them and Gove-nor ‘Grey approved the act. But just judgment with regard to the conduct of onr fellow creatures implies adequate consideration of their times.

Brainless boobies have one measure and one rule foall things as well as all persons. Wise men have many rules and many measures for all persons as well as all things. The brainless booby reminds one of th»t Procrustes who fastened every traveller he could “ grab” to an iron bed which said Procrustes thought exactly the length that every proper man ought to be. Though made of iron it could be lengthened or shortened at pleasure. Well, if the poor devil of a traveller happened to be too long the iron bed doubled him up, but if too short the iron bed stretched him out.

What Procrustes did with the body of such 100 short or too long travellers as fell into his clutches, brainless boobies of our Brummagem Cato school would do with every one whose mental structure is not exactly their own. They have fheir Procrustean bed fir all they are able to catch and fasten upon it. What Procrustes was in physics', according to fable, they are in morals, according to fact. Their morals are of a pie.-e with their politics which amount to a practical recognition of the London swell mobsman maxim : — They should take who have the power ; And’ they should keep who can.

If these “uhited walls" and “painted sepulchers” are so scandalized by the sexual connexions Governor Grey took such pains to make A la mode in Auckland, why do they single out for reprobation an officer whose abilities are beyond all question, whose integrity is undoubted, and whose general conduct is beyond reproach. Quizzicus has been blamed for incidental allusions to purely private matters the vei« Hat>on of which might “disturb the peace of families ” But Quizzicus is belied In no case has he written asentenceconcerning matters purely private. In no case has he alluded directly, or otherwise than directly, to the domestic relations of’any one. In no case has he made satire the vehicle of slander and a party print the vehicle of party malice. Moreover, his sketches are “ pictures in little” of those and those only who have no right to complain of the public criticism their public conduct has challenged. Brummagem Cato has a right to criticize public men upon.nublic grounds. Certainly, for asserting that right from the platform or through the press, I shall not) complain of him. What I complain of is not the exercise of a right which in this new land of ours belongs to all and sundry; but the abuse of a right which neither here nor any where else should be tolerated. Besides, Johh Williamson is not entitled to lecture people upon morals, and if more prudent than spiteful would in no way be a party to attacks on the private relations ef public servants. PUBLICOLA.