"WRITE ME DOWN AN ASS."

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3161, 16 August 1881, Page 3

"WRITE ME DOWN AN ASS."

The members for Clutha and Auckland West having, during a debate in the House, referred to the Wellington press in anything bufc complimentary terms, the Post takes them to task in the following manner : —" Mr Thomson, M.H.E. for Clutha, and Dr Wallis, M.H.E. for Auckland West, think the Wellington papers "miserable rags " —or at least say they do. The Wellington papers think them a couple of foolish old twaddlers —but are too polite to say so. The grievance under which these two honorable members labor is that their Parliamentary speeches are not reported in extenso. Shakespeare gives us a pleasant little sketch of a gentleman named Dogberry. He, too, held a public position, as do Messrs Thomson and Wallis. He never impresses readers of Shakespeare as being specially gifted with wisdom. Neither do Messrs Thomson and Wallis inspire such a suspicion on the part of their listeners. Mr Dogberry is reported by Shakespeare as having once spoken as follows: —" Dost thou not suspect my place ? Dost thou not suspect my years ? O that he were here to write me clown an ass ! But masters remember that I am an ass ; though it be not written down, yefc forget not that I am an ass. No, I am a wise fellow, and which is more an officer and which is more a householder, and one hat hath two gowns and everything handsome about him ! O that I had been writ down an ass!" Really the parallel is perfect. Dr Wallis and Mr Thomson, are we believe, " meenisters" or preachers of some kind or other. We deeply sympathise -with their congregations. Those hapless unfortunates must perforce remain, as if spellbound in their seats, listening (or appearing to listen) to the dreary maunderings and wretched platitudes of which these hon. and rev. gentlemen bestow upon them in such allopathic doses. A sense of propriety —perhaps somewhat overstrained—prevents their flight from the infliction. But when Messrs Thomson and Wallis rise in their places in Parliament the same restraint does not prevail. There is an immediate and precipitate rush both from the House and from tho galleries, members, strangers, and reporters, almost tumbling over one another in their haste to escape a purgatory only too familiar. Nay, even irreverent sotto voce remarks are heard from the departing crowds, in which the words " old bore " are of frequent recurrence. This distaste for intellectual improvement is unspeakably disgusting to these Parliamentary preachers • but they console themselves with the pleasing illusion thafc afc leasfc their speeches will fill several columns of next day's papers, and so their words of wisdom will not be lost to the world. Vain dream! Newspapers are accustomed to winnow tho wheat from the chaff in public speeches, and in the case of these two members there is so dreadfully little grain that the whole speech seems blown away in the winnowing. Newspapers can gauge pretty accurately how much boredom their readers will stand, and know very well that they won't stand much of Messrs Thomson and Wallis. A journal that ventured to inflict on its subscribers full reports of Messrs Thomson and Wallis' speeches would soon find itself without any readers at all. People really would not submit to such a fearful infliction. So the papers content themselves wifch giving fche gist of those hon. members' remarks, and the people call them blessed for their consideration. Ifc is consideration for such men as Messrs Thompson and Wallis, as well as compassion for their readers thafc induces the papers to condense their utterances. They may be ungrateful and lave about

" miserable rags," but they arc nevertheless deeply indebted to those " miserable rags " for not " writing them down " in tho way so ardently desired by their great prototype—Dogberry.