OUR INDIVIDUALITY.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 379, 16 June 1876, Page 3

OUR INDIVIDUALITY.

This is to be an egotistical column. "We dedicate it t»ourselves.' Not that "it is our intention to brag abou- our liberal support ia Naseby. Not we ;

W£, carry olir honors blushiugly ; with fear and dread lest may be they should take to themselves wings and flee away. Neither do we intend to write of our want of support, of the grievances wo iu common with all Britishers 'in good health are priviloged ta enjoy. Far be it from us to say harsh things of our foster mother Old Naseby. "What wo have to say is about our individuality, and the responsibility of that individuality to the public. This is not understood in Naseby. An idea ie prevalent, to our sorrow, that there IB a privilege elistinc:, mul to be claimed by the public, tinder which no privacy is allowed to the proprietors of this paper. Every Friday morning, if there ia a statement published bearing upon a public individual, upon a public body, or in reference to public business, Straightway one proprietor or other is waylaid and put upon his defence, and if tho persecutors had their way would be immolated in sacrificial fire in tho centre of the Kecreation Besorve. We put up with a moderate amount of this sort of tliiug; but our forbearance has limits. Last Friday the outraged innocents were tho Hospital Committee. This important and influential body met in solemn conclave, and sent ' "for one of tho ' wo' to answer, defend, give his informant (?) —out of courtesy of course. Now the ' we' set his back up, and spoke tho mind of the 'we ' pretty freely, which is this: —"We claim our right to be allowed to live quietly, unmolested, as private citizens ; if, in this publication, there is, as there must bo occasional error, if that error is pointed out to tho proprietors in writing we will correct it, or allow/ any one else to contradict it; if eveu it is dobateablo, any one can debate it. It is very rare that correspondence is ever excluded from our columns. Further, if anything is published likely to be injurious to character which, when called lip<,n properly to retract wo do Dot see fit to contradict or apologise for, a remedy is open to the person aggrieved sufficiently apparent to the most uninitiated in newspaper circles. In the moat emphatic manner we decline the priv .te Inquisition business, savoring too much of Spain and Russia to ajl in consonance with our ideas.

For ourselves and our individuality we may say that we keep no editor. The article is too expensive. We tried it twice. In both cases the expense was great and the benefit was extremely problematical. Yet, if we did indulge, ihe unfortuate victim's errors would be our own, and we sho'uld claim for liim the same privacy in private life we claim for ourselves. If

th is be not granted to us, still our pen will wage wai" on behalf of the destitute, tho neglected, and the oppressed.