The Evening Star. MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 1871.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 324, 23 January 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star. MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 1871.

Stung to madness by the contemptuous silence of the morning papers, the manager of the Evening News has begun to sweep the horizon with his batteries, firing at random. The total annihilation of Mr. Vogel having been now satisfactorily effected, he seeks, like Alexander, for other worlds to conquer; and as he is psychologically unable to prosecute any subject but one at a time with avidity and satisfaction, the removal of the unhappy Colonial Treasurer has left a blank which must make the world dreary to a naturally " dismal" mind. We shall, therefore, be doing a kindly act in presenting an object to fix the wandering eye of monomania ; and receiving in our sides his otherwise random shots, we shall become a martyr for the public good. A species of armed peace has-been existing for some time between the two evening papers. Knowing the circumstances of, our contemporary, in the hands of its present manager, we were reluctant to deal unkindly; although the wilful untruths and the occasional blasphemies in which our contemporary indulged, cried loudly to some journal to not let them pass with impunity. The leader, however, in the last issue of our contemporary has been so manifestly an attack, and an attempt to do injury to this journal

in its proprietory, that we feel exempt from the restrictions imposed, and accept the challenge. The leader, with covert purpose, has seeming reference to the morning journals. But there in no use in disguising the fact that for that portion having more particular bearing on this journal, and for the vindictiveuess apparent throughout, we are indebted to a letter which appeared in this journal a fewdays ago, referring to a blasphemous article in our contemporary. We do not regret having given insertion to that article, although it has evidently so deeply annoyed the manager of our contemporary. In common with all with whom we have spoken, we endorse the strong language used by our correspondent in condemning that article as an offence in the sight of (rod, and an impertinent insult to the people of Auckland. A public journal is not the place for discussing theological dogmas, but the public may fairly ask that at least religion shall not be reviled, and the Deity brought into contempt ; and we agree with our correspondent that the comparison of Almighty God to Mr. Stafford, and the "public" to the " Son of Man" walking in the midst of the burning fiery furnace, is not the correct thing in such a place as Auckland. A short time since, the manager of our contemporary inserted an advertisement beginning with a blasphemous invocation of the name of the Saviour, and ending with showing that it was all about the breaking of a pane of glass. "We can tell our contemporary that this ia not the thing for Auckland. It is true the present conductor of that journal has been accustomed to a lower state of social feeling ; aucl <ye have no doubt that among the felonry of Van Dieman's Land such a style of writing would be smart; and that the most ribald jests about the Diety would be the correct thing according to Van Demonian principles. But we do not want Van Demonianism imported into Auckland. And we would recommend the manager of our contemporary that if he finds it impossible to conduct his jouraal on the principles acknowledged among people who have not graduated in the condemned cell, he had better return to Van Dieman's Land.

It is not our desire at the present to explain the origin of the political principles that have been lately advocated with such rabid violence by our contemporary. Any one with knowledge of human nature must have seen that it was personal feeling and personal disappointment that has embalmed the name of " Vogel'' in the columns of the Evening JSeios. Had the wishes of the manager of that journal been conceded, the Evening Netvs would nave been singing pceans of praise for Mr. Vogel aa the saviour of the country. As it is, the Colonial Treasurer is a malignant demon, touching but to destroy, blasting this fair country by his presence as with fire and brimstone, and producing such feelings within us that we can even ridicule the Deity, and laugh at him as " Mr. Stafford." Perhaps we are not to blame the manager of our contemporary for the melancholy view he takes of all human things. He cannot help it. A man of a melancholy temperament, if long placed in melancholy circumstances, must naturally become very sad. And we do not know, of anything more calculated to produce a morbid tendency than to be a constant resident in a large penal establishment, and obliged to produce literary and political pabulum suited to the vitiated taste of the condemned cell. The political aspirations of such a people must necessarily be of a sombre cast, and we should think that a certain necessity must exist for the literary purvej^or to remember that robbery is the basis on which the place is founded, and that politics, being the higher form of social life, must be merely- a system of beautifully complicated swindling. "With such a theory, political movement must be regarded as peril, and political death the only safety. Not only from the taint of felonry in the people, but possibly the actual danger in political vitality, Vandieman's Land has never been allowed to venture on any bold scheme of advancement. We are not to blame the manager of our contemporary if a long residence in such scenes has had a morbid effect. And where everything so tended to make one dismal, he was distinguished as being par excellence " The Dismal," we cannot wonder that, like a bird of ill-otnen, he now hoots out dismally, dismayed at the light and life and political buoyancy and happiness that he finds around him. Indeed | he might have learned from his dismal memories of the five or six journals at whose birth and funeral obsequies he assisted, that a little cheerfulness is productive of vitality; and that even in Van Dieman's Land, where every movement only reveals the social and political rottenness, where a Gregson

is the emblem of parliamentary propriety, and a Eeiby the type of ecclesiastical purity, even there the people crave a little sunlight shed on the dreary waste of political and social ethic?. In Auckland we need not say that Van Diemonianistn is out of place, as the dismal screechings of a nightowl at noontide. "We presume it is to the same morbid tendency that we must attribute the fact that the manager of our contemporary has attempted to draw aside the veil of anonymity that usually shelters journalism. We have reluctantly followed the example from necessity, and expect that we shall be compelled on another occasion to tear it wholly and ruthlessly away. The negotiatious of the manager of our contemporary may be more successful with his new masters than were his proposals to Mr. Vogel. But we anticipate that his services rendered, and the elections over, he will have still more " dismal " cause to wail the instability of human promises ; and that not even blasphemy against the Deity, though exhibiting the intensity of personal and political hate, will bring him such requital, as to reverse in his esteem the value of the precept " Put not your trust in princes."