YOUR VIRTUOUS (?) CONTEMPORARY.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 786, 28 December 1876, Page 3

YOUR VIRTUOUS (?) CONTEMPORARY.

lo the Editor of the Globe, " Assume a virtue if you have it not,” Sir, —If the purity of the Lyttelton Times exceeds the measure of its intelligence, people will be equally surprised to hear it A paragraph appears in this morning’s Lyttelton Times which, to my mind, is an amusing combination of toadyism to the railway authorities and self-laudation. The Lyttelton Times has received a couple of tree passes on the railways from the Government. Its mingled feelings of gratiiude and Pharisaical assumption of a virtue which is proof against the temptations to which minor journals might yield, find vent in the following delicious morsel : " We have received from Mr Lawson, traffic manager, a couple of free passes for the use of our representatives when travelling on the Canterbury railways. This is a graceful acknowledgment on the part of the Government of the enterprise which leads newspapers nowadays to send out far and wide in search of information to place before their readers. The passes are only for business purposes, and the railway authorities may be sure that, in our case, at all events, their confidence will not be abused.” Mark the modesty revealed in the words which I have taken the liberty to italicise. The implication that other journals do not possess such a high sense of honor as the Lyttelton Times, justifies the motto with which I have headed this communication. I remain, Your obedient servant, SIMON PDRB’S YOUNGER BROTHER.