Rough on Newspapers

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 91, 15 January 1885, Page 2

Rough on Newspapers

Mr O'Moagher, in addressing the jury on behalf of Fitzgerald recently tried tor murder in .Dune-din, said that after the addresses that had been delivered Jie had little detail work to do, bat before he came to such as he had to do he wished to impress upon the jury very fully the necessity that there was for them to forget entirely all that had been written and published in the newspapers with reference to this case. They were all human, and it was a very difficult thing, once the human mind had received an impression, to remove it. In looking through the papers he found theories, delicious theories, theories provided by the gentlemen of the Press for the delectation of the readers of the various papers. One paper in particular had given a whole column of such matter, and this whilst two men were under arrest, and one might almost say the case was sub judice. It appeared to him that the gentlemen of the Press were only too delighted to get hold of anything that they might call sensational, and only too glad to get the opportunity of whetting their pens on the prospective tombstone of some unfortunate, innocent man, though whether within the prison walls they provided such luxuries for men who were immured there he knew not. He thought it would be much more fair, and much more in the interests of public justice, if newspapers would refrain from conamentß upon all cases where mens's lives were in imminent danger. He did not blame the reporters for this, but the proprietors of the newspapers — the reporters must provide sensational items to fill the columns, or their services would be dispensed with. — Dunedin Star.