NEWSPAPERS AND LIBEL.

Evening Star, Issue 3361, 27 November 1873, Page 2

NEWSPAPERS AND LIBEL.

The picturesque town of Wanganui is a splendid field for the gentlemen of the long robe, and a dangerous one for newspapers—there being but two newspai>er« in the district, the proprietor of each having been, at this session of the Supreme Court, called upon to defend actions for libel. Actions for slander and. libel arc as customary and prevalent as the sitting of the Circuit Court, and when one arises in the morning he eagerly seizes the Wanganui Chronicle to ascertain if, among the locals, there is a paragraph, commencing: “We were yesterday served with a writ, issued at the instance of Mr this fact when the Evtnimj Herald announce# “ that from, inquiries we have made we have reason -to believe that several minor inaccuracies crept into our report, aud we hasten to correct them, Mr having threatened us with legal proceedings.” &c. Truly this is a promising state of tilings, imd likely to tend to the total annihilation of the liberty ef the Press. It was contemplated to start another journal here, but the course of recent events has hopelessly crushed that enterprise. These local papers have no reason to fear a “rival,*'as any proprietary must of necessity hare a bank at its back, if ?di‘6 C«5 goat strays into Mrs B.’s

garden the sendee* of one-learned in the law are at. once, secured, and this trivial occurrence generally assumes the form'for insulting and abusive language. On the very evening of my arrival two well-known celebrities were earnestly discoursing the probabilities of the case of Watt v. Ballance, but finding that a stranger was within hearing, and a policeman in right, with a mysterious and serio-tragic stage air they cautiously beat a retreat and entered the neighboring “pub”’ In the month of February last certain letters appeared in the Wanganui Keening Herald bearing upon “hens and swamp hens," and in order that your readers may acquire a little knowledge of these birds I may add that there is a place called the Swamp near the City, in which a number of “very prudent women” (if this were for a Wanganui paper I should be compelled to write ladies) took their roost, and rumor with her busy tongue hath said that birds of a brighter plumage were also in the habit of taking roost among them, until an old veteran “ cockatoo,” in stormy weather unexpectedly brought 1 them under his- sheltering and protecting wings. The tender chickens no doubt wanted nursing, and the dismal swamp required draining—as a hen suffering from thirst a number of the hens preferred adjourning to a neighboring hotel. The unfortunate editor was at once pounced upon, and yesterday a special jury was called. A lawyer from the Empire city was engaged on the one side, and another from Picton on the other. The case was about to proceed, when two of the jury intimated thatthey were witnesses. Then earned a brief delay, when the Wellington man of law suggested to his Pictonian brother that he wished to confer with him. The Judge assented, and the two retired. The Court was crowded, and solemn silence reigned, the eager spectators waiting to hear the result. At last the great men entered, and declared “ that an arrangement had been arrived at by which the action was to be referred to arbitration.” It was really gratifying to witness the heavenly smile that beamed upon the pallid countenances of these great guns, and I was not in any way alarmed when a portly old lady of some fifty summers, and seventeen stone, ssid, “ Oh the butchers —they don’t care so long as they get their dirty fee.” This caused me to use my bandana, and with tears in my eyes meekly replied, “ You are right, m-a-m.” She looked at me in such a winning way that, with Josh Billings, I felt quite flabbergasted; but the Judge, with serious mien, shook his wigged head and told the jury “he was glad, and could not help congratulating them upon their haying been spared the scandal of the .details of the case, as the record disclosed anything but a healthy state of things,” The defendant has pleaded that he can prove everything and much more than the letters referred to indicated, and having seen the brief, muiit candidly confess that some strange things were likely, to be made light. The AttorneyGeneral has, I am informed, consented to act in the matter; and as the investigation will partake of a private nature the Wanganui-ites will not be favored with the interesting details; but I have sent for my boy Friday, and as he can squeeze through a keyhole, you may, if civil, be furnished with a few interesting scraps concerning this matter, which has engaged the attention of so many in these parts. A bright idea just strikes me—l will give up the pennya lining business and turn lawyer. Just fancy, the big guns mentioned received L 250 between them, and they were not employed in Court longer than an hour. ; Pretty good pay this. — Auckland Star.