THE HON. J. HALL AND THE “LYTTELTON TIMES.”

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1622, 2 May 1879, Page 2

THE HON. J. HALL AND THE “LYTTELTON TIMES.”

To the Editor of the Globe, Sin, —That superlatively respectable print and guardian of the courtesies, the “Lyttelton Times,” has of late devoted a few leaders to the Hon. John Hall. It is not a new employment for the “ Lyttelton Times” to criticise Mr Hall. In fact, Mr Hall, when opportunity offers, is always considered good game. But the “ Lyttelton Times,” although selfassumedly a high-toned journal, y does not alwayp hold it a point of decency that no variation from the truth should pollute its columns. On the contrary, the veracity of the “Lyttelton Times” is not seldom regulated by the appropriateness of the opportunity and the chance of a dig at an opponent.

A political interchange between Mr Hall and another gentleman has offered an opening, and the occasion has become notorious by an overwhelming quantity of what our friends from America term "ink slinging." Whether the black deluge was warranted by a belief in the truth of the published telegram, I pass over—for the present. As at first published, to fit the chance, Mr Hall was' made to appear—well, say it mildly—not in an enviable position, and upon that foundation the genteel scribes of the " Lyttelton Times " furnished their readers with a vocabulary of abuße and raillery of that gentleman, and wound up with a gratuitous essay upon political morality and good behaviour in general.

But it turns out that the foundation for the scribble was rotten, and, in fact, that the telegram as given in such detail by, the "Lyttelton Times" was a manufactured tarradiddle. Of the falseness of the telegram, the "Times" has become painfully aware, by the very explicit and quiet declaration of Mr Hall himself. Thereupon, one would have thougt that respectability caught in a lie, would acknowledge its error. But high tone, when once it has stooped to be the venal tool of a faction, is no longer a free agent. Its submission by contract compels it to meanness, and its claim to smartness forces itself to abuse.

There is not at the present day a more useful man as a settler in Canterbury than the Hon. John Hall. Take his everyday gratuitous services alone, as a member of Boards and societies, and those alone, without entering into private matters, entitle him to respect, and dwarf into nothingness the services of self-elected instructors of the public It is nothing less than a shame and a scandal that a paper should, for base political and pecuniary ends, and upon grounds totally false, hold up an honorable gentleman and eminently useful settler to ridicule and contempt. Such work ought to recoil upon the hirelings guilty of it, and chivalry must have given up the ghost, when a British officer, like Colonel Whitmore, is found capable of the part he has played in the matter. I am, sir, yours, &c, FAIR PLAY.