Bowled Out.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 3, Issue 60, 3 February 1883, Page 2

Bowled Out.

The Times of last night appears to have rather got out of its dept'i m trying to clear itself of a charge of appropriating a letter addressed to the Standard. We now learn that it haR considered it the best policy to admit its guilt, arid has returned the letter to ]\£rsMe/.ennan. This is very .tardy repentance, and we fear would never have been heard of but for the steps we foun^ it necessary to take. We maysay this is not the first affair of .the kind. Not ..very long since, the postmaster returned to us a letter which bad been opened by tbe same party, though it was apparent from th« ad-d-ess that it was 1 not for him. We have on repeated occasions either handed back to Mr Innes, or re-posted, letters or postcards belonging to the Times-, which had got into the Standard box. It appears that the Times says its attention was first drawn to our paragraph by Mr A. Ferguson.- Well, it wrs very kind and .thoughtful of Mr Ferguson, who does love to ba poking his n?se- .into ■,, other people's business, i and who sometimes gets so fearfully takeiDtolaskj, for what Cr. Walker terms his il intolerable 'impudence" that his fronds feel sorry for him. When the first notice of the missing letter appeared m our columns, which was on the 24th of last month, was when the Times should have discovered its " error/!, and: promptly ; made amends. It does not matter what the letter containeia- i't^waa his duty to have returned it^immediately he saw it was not for him I .' In 1 hWietter to JM.r. McLennan he . .?W; tjM \whpn $he Standard's first paragraph appeared, he did not look up the original,^ and yet he went over to Mr Innes, m a great state of anxiety, andjiSaid, , he ' believed the paragraph referred to him,!- And still "he did not look up the original." Very strange J Jri fact he did' not " look up the original j \diitil the matter was getting/most warm. We ;think we exercised the greatest for* bearance., Many, .people;, possessed of the .proofs we had would have taken very different steps,— steps that the circumstances no doubt would have justified, ; However, if the letter a copy of which appears m the Times last niirht really has - been sent to Mr McLenn&n; and "the missing letter' has i been' rettfrned to the writer, little more need' be : said on the Bubject. The Tim*sdoes not come put of the affair with much credit, m our opinion, as it jwas not till ; it saw we held/ undoubted proofs of our first statement that he pleaded guilty. It says we ought to lhave written -hipi; privately. We don't think so. Etc ahonld not require to have been written to at all ontbi subject, and would very probably have ; rep led m 'a style familiar to him, and that has already gained for him a special and not very enviable notoriety. We trust he will never again involve himself m a similar risk, as possibly on the next occasion he tnay .have one to deal with who may beiieve m treating suchacaseas requhiiig the adjudica* tion of a Court of Law.