PUBLIC OPINION.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2451, 23 December 1870, Page 3

PUBLIC OPINION.

To (he Editor of Hu- Ercniioj Stitr. Sir:.. —Of all the weekly journals 1 have over either seen or heard of. your contemporary the Echo is the smallest—smallest in superficial inches, smallest in its attempt at public enlightenment, smallest by far in its exhibition of low, paltry spite against political antagonists. Its last issue contains abundant proof of the latter asseition , a loot rule and live minutes consideration will establish the truth of the other two. 'Die Echo of th • 17th hist., printed on a sheet measuring 20 x 00 inches, contains—besides several items of ordinary newspaper matter —two leading articles (of very questionable quality), occupying two and a half columns, twenty-two paragraphs, two letters, and a borrowed leader "from the Wellington Post : the end and object of oil being to bring the Kxesutivc (lovernment of the Colony into disrepute and Mr \ ogcl to utter contempt. Isow, if one looks upon the Press as au educator of the people in matters political, what is to he thought of a journal like this '! In its person the high functions of the Press have been abrogated. The newspaper, instead of being a healthful channel for the

run of public information, has become a sewer to carry off the filth of one weak and polluted mind. _ Does the person who edits the Echo imagine that bis rabid antagonism to the Government will have much influence on public opinion? If he does he makes a inistske. From my own class and upwards, we look for less of the barrister and more of the judge in a writer who is to influence our opinions on public men or public measures. We look for very much better arguments, very much better stated than the ordinary supply dealt out in the Echo. There are a few, of course, whose understandings don’t place them beyond the infl rence of Grant’s logic, who will hsten to t 1 e ravings of the Echo, but the great body of the people do not listen. It is only because of the liability of strangers to be misled by it as to our opinions of our public men and their policy, that it deserves a passing and contemptuous notice. One may fairly suppose that the leader reprinted from the Wellington Post contains iu some degree a reflex of the opinions of the editor of the Echo. It is worth the reading, just to show how far a depraved and cowardly nature may venture in a free country without punishment, under the disguise of being a public journalist. The proper reply to the last sentence in that article is beyond all question a horsewhip. I have not written this letter as a friend of Mr Vogel. He is a gentleman I never spoke to, and possibly never will. I have written it to mark my indignation and contempt at this display in the press of the very same spirit manifested in the Theatre when Mr Vogel first attempted to address the oilmens—a spirit compounded of stupidity and malice. I am, &c.,' One ok the cheat Unwashed.