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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4435, 7 June 1875, Page 3

It was Lord Brougham, we believe, who spread a false report of his own death, in order that he might have the pleasure of reading obituary notices of himself in the papers. The Hon. Mr. Box has undesignedly attained the same end. The Waikato Times of May the 20th had the column rules in its inside pages reversed, so as to give the paper an appearance presenting a neat compromise a literary hearse and a mourning card, and its telegraphic columns proclaimed touts readers the cause of these trappings and suits of woe. In those columns appeared the startling headings ;—toss or mail steamer. — 811 lives lost. — the hon. mr. fox dhowned. _ These headings, it is needless to say, rather did credit to the inventive faculties of a correspondent than to his reputation for accuracy. _ The telegrams underneath them conveyed intelligence of the loss of the mail steamer Schiller, and noticed a rumor that Sir George Grey had received a telegram announcing the death by drowning of the Hon. Mr, Fox. The editor in this case gave full credit to the rumor, for, in addition to the mourning already noticed, he inserted a loader commencing “ The Hon. Mr. Fox is drowned,” apologising for being unable to give a proper memoir of the deceased, but making up for that by a few lines of eloquent panegyric. We have no doubt but that the editor of the Waikato Times is a most humane man, but he can only be human, and his joy at subsequently learning that: Mr. Fox had not been drowned must have been tinged with sorrow that the predilections of the hon. gentleman for water had not carried him far enough to support the accuracy of the Waikato Time).