LITERARY LICENSE.

Evening Star, Issue 3369, 6 December 1873, Page 1 (Supplement)

LITERARY LICENSE.

Wc have received the following article from | a correspondent, with the main points of which wc coincide : We arc not very squeamish, hut there arc i some tilings we can’t stand ; and one of these is that vulgar and disgusting stylo of writing which the “Daily Times” has latterly adopted, a sample of which appeared in its issue of Saturday last, headed “(Jossip by the Mail.” There js some ability in the article in question, which, considering the journal in winch it appeared, is saying a great deal for it. But it is, from beginning to end, a sneering attack upon all that is venerable in ('lunch and State, Take the paragraphs in the order in which they appear. The first, “on pretenders and disputed identity,” describes “the Claimant ” as “that ponderous Protestant lamb, and ornament of Reformed ('lunches.” In the next sentence we are told that Protestants “would rather that a Wapping butcher, an ex-bushranger, or a perjurer should hold the historical property of the Tichbornes, than a lawful heir still adhering to the errors of the scarlet woman and that “ a great deal of the popularity of the claimant is owing to this fooling.” Members of the .Reformed or Protestant Churches in Otago should be grateful to the “ Daily Times” for this estimate of them ; but there is even greater praise in store for them. The rest (of the claimant’s popularity, says the “ Tunes”) is perhaps due to the natural desire of roughs to see a genuine rough, as brutal and idiotic as the roughest, clothed in purple and fine linen.” Hear that, ye brutal Protestant roughs of ()tago. who come under the lash of the “ Daily Times,” your oldest paper, and therefore entitled to speak of you with some degree of confidence, because what is the distinguishing type of j British Protestants in the Mother Country is their distinguishing type in < Itago also. But lest there should be a doubt as to the offensive meaning of the writer and publisher of the article iu question, the quotations above given arc capped by the next sentence: “ The superior morality of Protestant countries is not made juauifest by cither of the alternative motives”

Here is no ambiguity of thought or expression it is a malignant libel upon the “superb morality of Protestant Otago.” as it is upon tl; morality of Protestant England, both bein pre-eminently “ Protestant countries,” Setting truth ami decency at defiance i bemiring Protestantism, the “Daily Times goes on in its second paragraph of “Gossip b tln> Mail,” to revile the memory of the illm •ti'ious dead. The revered and saintly Ghalmoi is exhumed : that this hater of the reformed faith and reveller in filthy imaginings may outrage the sanctity of the grav and insult the living. The a'tack is basei upon an extract from a gossipy letter o Sara (-oleridge to her daughter, which is per haps excusable in a woman of her monta characteristics, time and circumstance considered, but which is wholly inexcusable in it; setting in the “Daily Times.” Writing of (dial merv, she says that “when he docs get hold o! an idea, what a splutter he makes of it for a dozen pages,” and so on, her comparison of the profound thinker having “got hold of an idea,” being that of a child with a doll. .And this of his “ Bridgwater Treatise,” which “was received with great favor,” we are told by Chambers, “and obtained for the author many liteiary honors : the Royal Socioiy of i Edinburgh electing him a fellow, and the French Institute a corresponding member, while the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L.” Put the “Daily Times,” preferring the silly gossip of a female chatterbox to the verdict of the learned bodies of Europe, endorses her remarks on Chalmers with these words:---“ The following passage [meaning the extract alluded to] from the life and letters of Sara < 'oleridge, as recently published by her daughter, is so hwtinot with graceful satire, and perhaps some will think so true, that it is worth publishing, perhaps out of its proper place.” And so it is republished by the Dunedin newspaper winch the Rev. Mr Gillies recently claimed to be the organ of the Presbyterian Church in Otago. Fortunately the Presbytery repudiated the claim. But the “Daily Times,” having reviled the memory of the dead, as we have shown, proceeds to insult the living : “It would be bard times for the average minister,” says that veracious print, “andhard work for the best, if many ladies were endowed with the keen vision and humor of Sava ('oleridge ; but in the best interests of the best of causes women are not so trained as this lady,

and the churches flourish accordingly, and the pot of him who never, like Chalmers, gets hold of an argument, boils.” Pretty plain speaking ; but there is plainer yet behind : “Perhaps, however, this sprightly lady is a little too haul on the divine. An eminently successful lawyer once said that he owed his success to his practice of selecting in every case the stupidist juror, and repeating every argument till he saw that he had hammered it into him. Dr < Jhalmers may have rightly gauged his audience and gone on the same principle.” j This is eminently complimentary to the memory of the great Christian preacher, and the hundreds of thousands of intelligent men and women who hung upon his words of wisdom, purity, and truth. Christians of all denominations in Otago should acknowledge their obligations to the new light which the “ Daily Times ” sheds upon the preacher and his hearers. Then follows a little fling at Mr Bathgate, not very objectionable in its way ; and a coarse attack upon the Queen, the late Prince Consort, and the Royal Family. The passage is so co.vi-se as to be unfit to lie upon any respectable table. It is worse than the most filthy medical advertisement that finds its way into struggling and unprincipled newspapers. Why, Malthas, whose disciple the writer in the “ Daily Times” appears to ho, and who, for anything we know to the contrary may, like Malthas, be iu holy orders himself, wns modesty itself compared with the author of the article in question. It is not even customary to write of stud animals in such a strain in agricultural newspapers, but the “Daily Times” must think it suitable to the taste of its gradually decreasing circle of , readers, or it would not adopt this disgusting style of writing. 'The next paragraph has a fling at Messrs Reynolds and Bathgate ; and “our own poor, overworked Vogel ” is taken into the most unholy keeping of his old reviled and traducer, the “Otago Daily Times.” lake Mr Gladstone, the “ Times” regards Mr Vogel ns “a. good man struggling with adversity, to wit, an unmanageable ‘crew.’ ” If there were but a Cabinet of -Julius Vogels, quoth the “Daily Times,” fNew Zealand would have a perfect Government; but the good man, Julius, struggling with adversity, “ is a painful spectacle to any but the Epicurean Gods ; and even they must find in his versatility some alloy of the enjoyment with which they witness 11 good 111:111 struggling with adversity!” Good for the “Otago Daily Times.” The whirley-gig of Time brings round its revenges ; and thus does the “Daily Times,” in an article reviling things sacred and exalted, fall prostrate ' before Julius Vogel, whom it so lately anathe- ' matised. Is not this suggestive? Does it not argue that when the conductors of the ', “Times” find it unprofitable to scoff at the Chris- j tian religion, vilify Protestantism, and ridicule the worthies of the Presbyterian Church, they ! will profess themselves to be “miracles of ami, Simon Magus-like, be prepared tb 1 traffic on their religious profession? From ' a somewhat lengthened experience of the “ Times’s” management, we are inclined to 1 think that that is the future in store for it ; and then verily the last state of that journal will be worse than the first. ' We have not space to dissect the “ Times’s” 1 article more minutely. We may remark, how- ' ever, that having denounced Protestantism and 1 despised authority, it takes the puerilities of 1 “ spiritism” under its wing. It says:—“ The 1 phenomena may be, nay, wo admit they are j worthy investigation, for they are attested by ' innumerable witnesses |who have shaped their 1 faith upon them, and whose honesty it would - re puerile to doubt.” The concluding parajraph iu the article is in the Malthusian strain, 1 uul like that writer’s deductions opposed to { ( norality, religion, and social happiness. But j ( ve have written emnigh to put the public on I f ts guard against the grossly immoral and irre- ‘ igious tendency of the writings in the “ Otago • Daily Times.” We take this upon us as part of ' >ur public duty. If the community tolerate 1 * t, the blame will rest with themselves ; and heir children, whose characters are yet to *| orm, will undoubtedly reap the evil fruit. *