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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4355, 5 March 1875, Page 2

Whatever has happened to the Otago Daily Times ? It has taken a new departure, and for so staid a paper has adopted a tone of. levity, to use no stronger expression, which is very much out of place in the leading columns.of a respectable journal. There is something affecting in the lament of the Lyttleton Times, that the matrimonial market is stagnant, and that marriageable girls "above the labor- " ing and shop-keeping classes"- will not move off. As a last shift in,journalism, this may pass muster. It will find a ready response, doubtless, in many matronly breasts in the colony, and were it at all likely to induce eligible young men to propose it would do a great measure of good. . But somehow, personal, desires in this regard are not in the least degree affected by anything that appears in print. However, in these dull times, when news is absolutely unprocurable, a leader on the causes of the prevailing dulness.-in the mart of Hymen will do as well as anything else. But the Daily Times has struck out a new line for itself. Not content with being dull, it has become profane ; and vulgar ribaldry is deemed a substitute for wit. We refer especially to two recent publications ; —that of the 25th ultimo, in. which the appointment of Mr. J. Strange Williams to, the Otago-Judicial Circuit of the Supreme Court, was denounced in strong terms, and to a subsequent one of the Ist March. Now, it is not so much to the terms in : whichMr. Williams's appointment was spoken of that we object, as to the abuse of the leading columns by the publication in it of an imaginary speech of Mr Reynolds to his constituents., We do not mean to say that there was any very great exaggeration even in this sketch. it rhit..off. the peculiarities of the hon. gentleman and of a Dunedin meeting ; but what we do say is, that it was entirely out of place where it appeared. An intelligent-stranger, travelling in New Zealand, and taking up this issuo of the Daily Times, would certainly form a very low, and a very erroneous . opinion as well, of Otago journalism. We were inclined, however, to the opinion that this squib had found its way into our contemporary, as a substitute for a leader,'by some mistake; but on the Ist instant,,;as we.have said, another of the same character appeared, and therefore we conclude that it has been recognised as, a legitimate and becoming style of journalism by our contemporary. Wo regret that such should be the case, bocause there was too great a tendency towards imitating .the worst., side of American journalism'in various quarters, without a paper of the weight and respectability of the "Daily Times' taking the lead, and countenancing a departure from the.recognised rules of journalistic propriety;'' 'No one has a right to protest against vigorous criticism, nor is the use of; strong language necessarily a violation of gppd taste; but in the-instances in question, good'taste and refined feeling are 'equally outraged. A great deal, no doubt, may be said in extenuation, when one -considers the scant material - out of which a New Zealand journalist is required to fill"his' daily broadsheet, but even making the. .widest possible . allowance for the 'straits to which he is re.duced, there is no justifying the publications in question.