The Globe. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 1876.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 555, 29 March 1876, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 1876.

We once more have occasion to refer to the language used by the press of this city with reference to the Premier. We consider the language indulged in by the Lyttclton Times of yesterday as not only a disgrace to the paper itself, but as having a terrible sigoiifie tnce in respect to the state of utter degra dation into which a public journal can descend. We wonder and look on amazed, watching these audacious attacks upon a statesman. The referring to Sir Julius Vogel as " this " king of Jeremy Diddlers," and the unnecessary reference to Dr Watts' Hymns is corroborative evidence that the writer must but of late escaped froin a lunatic asylum ; and whilst advocating the liberty of the press, and being strongly convinced that that liberty should not be in the slightest degree iafringed, we are pouad to eay

that if the law of libel could be brought into force so far as to protect the Premier at the time being from such really personal defamations, and the country at large from the injurious and false impressions thereby created, it would not only be a present benefit but a lasting advantage. "We have no sympathy with detractors and assailants of political integrity, it is so easy to give utterance to —personalities of the grossest nature whilst alluding to a politician —but we ask these cowardly detractors whether they dare assail a stage player ? No, no, not even with an adverse criticism. They must not comment upon the conduct of a racehorse owner or a betting man ; but yet, forsooth, because a man is placed in a position of eminence, he is to patiently sit down and be abused by being made the subject of slurring comparisons. We repeat our words, the article in question is a disgrace to the press of the Colony — there is no moderate language which can convoy the distaste such miserable tirades have for men of reasonable ideas. "We think there is scarcely a political opponent of Sir Julius Vogel in the Colony, but who will hang his head with shame, when he sees to what depth of humiliation he sinks, by being associated even by name, with a party whose policy is to assail a man whose status excludes him in a certain measure from being enabled to protect himself. There was a very good custom in vogue at one period, when gentlemen (?) who indulged in this sort of language, had sometimes the pleasure of interviewing their admirers from a raised platform in the market place, and were congratulated upon their elevation, and forcibly presented with the carcases of dead rats and rotten eggs. "We strongly protest against the circulation of such personalities, as they impress the outside world, that this colony not only is on the high road to ruin, but is at present in the hands of unprincipled men. However, we will not have the name of the Press of Canterbury associated with any such scurrilities whilst able to enter a protest against them, as we hold such to be contemptible, mean and cowardly. There would be no excuse if the} r were published in a comic paper, because there was never a newspaper issued with less fun in it than the Lyttelton Times, whilst the outrageous insinuations contained in yesterday's leader jvould put to the blush the editor of the London Police News, If the Times would take one lesson from its morning contemporary, the Press, in good manners, it would do well ; and although we do not agree with the political tendencies of the Press articles, we can certainly peruse them without a sensation of humiliation and disgust.