A Troublesome Correspondent.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 147, 3 September 1872, Page 7

A Troublesome Correspondent.

The Auckland Evening Star, referring to one of a class of correspondents from whom every newspaper conductor suffers more or less annoyance, makes the following pungent remarks :

We have been endeavouring to bring our correspondence columns within reasonable limits. In doing so we have given offence to correspondents, who are a most irritable class of pe< »ple. We have, however, succeeded in snuffing out several, but on Mr F. A. Duncan wo absolutely cannot put the snuffer. He is irrepressible. He has got a mission. That mission is to bore the public, and the Evening Star is to be the medium. He hangs about our office like a blow-fly about a candle, to the manifest danger of singeing his wings. At the offices of our contemporaries they fly when they see him ; and " There he is again !" heralds his approach. Among our employes he is known as " that fellow Duncan," and "here's another letter from that fellow Duncan" is the "Good morning" with which our daily advent is announced. He haunts us at street corners, and he appears to us in the weird visions of the night. His dark shadow is upon our path, and his übiquity keeps us in never-ending fear and great trembling. To propitiate his wrath and obtain a day's re] ose we occas orally <:ive insertion to one of his productions, which ranee in their subjects from counsels to the legislature to the groans of a poor Maori in the agonies of colic, caused by sitting on a told stone, and it is in the hope of being delivered for a short time from this intolerable bondage that we give insertion to the following letter :

—" Sir, —Your conduct to me I look upon as somewhat ungcntlemnnly for the following reason (tangible) :—Having written to the Even'nj Star three letters upon pn'.Uc matters, you, sir, as part proprietor and suppos d editor of that journal, did not publish nor, forsooth, you (1 d not proffer the scant politeness in acknowledging them in 'the notice to correspondents.' I am a person who feais not to tell any public man my opinion of him. The editor of the Herald, I perceive by today's paper, understands correct conduct. En passant I would remark that I belong to the Cobden-Bright school, being a member of the Anti-Lorn Law League in 1841.—Your obedient servant, F. A. Duncan." En passant (to quote 3\lr Dune in", we would remark that we have so often done him the " scant politeness in acknowledging him in the ' notice to correspondents,' " that we have given it over as a bad job. However, to-day we hope we have made amends. We really believe that Mr Duncan is a person "who kars not to tell any public man his opinion of him," and so long as he does not get kicked or have his nose tweaked, wo recommend him to continue in the same independent course, but we hope he will never come near us again. As for the editor of the Herahl's understanding of correct conduct we are aware that that gentleman's digestion has been seriously impaired by the frequent appearances of Mr Duncan ; that he has become possessed of the strange hallucination that Mr Duncan is the devil, and that he is coming to him for the fulfilment of some unredeemed pledge, or for the forfeit of his soul. We believe further that the editor of the Herald from "understanding correct conduct" has got a new lock on the editorial door fitted with silver, on which cabalistic devices are engraven, and that he has obtained a revolver and silver bullets, and that he means to shoot Mr Duncan or the devil, whichever it may be. We have not come to that yet, but we are very near it. And we implore Mr Duncan in mercy spare us—spare us yet a little longer to our suffering country.