The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5137, 10 September 1877, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1877.

It is a recognised physiological fact that the “ human race”—in these days of Press persecutions it is safest to generalize—is subject to maladies of imitation. Households have been known in which tho smiling children one after the other have contracted a , horrible and permanent squint from a .too earnest contemplation,: or a sportive mockery, of the face : of a nurse, the optical axis of whose eyes appeared abnormally convergent. In garrison a soldier hangs himself in his sentrybox, and 1 straightway the malady of imitation becomes epidemic in the regiment, and is stamped out only when all the boxes in barrack are abolished, and the sentry is forced to walk his “lonely round” in the storm and rain. We could multiply illustrations, but the experience of our readers will furnish evidence of the truth of the saying that misfortunes never come singly, which may be taken ad one of the popular forms of expressing the fact we have indicated. If Mr. Didsbury, the Government Printer, be a sceptic and have any doubt of this “ fact,” his seep-, ticism and his doubts, we presume, aro now in process of being cured and set at rest. He has just been crushed in an action for libel, and before he has’ had time to recover breath and get on his legs again he has received notice of a second action of a similar kind in connection ’with the publication of the native journal known as the “ Waka Ma ri.” This

journal is popularly regarded as the bane and antidote of another native journal, the “ Wananga,” published in Hawke’s Bay, under the distinguished auspices of that section of the Maori people stigmatised as the Repudiatipn?fparty. Mr. Didsbury is also the printer of another public journal known as the' 1 - 1 Hansard,” and if ho I were to be held ■ accountable at law for everything'that 'appears therein the post of Government Printer would be as dangerous as that of the leader of a forlorn hope. Happily, however, the “Hansard” is a privileged publication, and if , Mr. Dxdsbuey’s appetite for slander be as gross as it might be made to appear to be, he may find compensation . and solace for the dangers which attend its gratification by means of the “Waka,” in the immunity which he enjoys as the printer of “Hansard.” It must be enough even for a glutton in libels to be able to proclaim upon unimpeachable authority, for the edification of mankind and the encouragement of future senators, that an honorable gentleman, a representative of the people, occupying a leading place, is little less than a public robber, and that his accuser is afraid to say so-outside the walls of ‘ Parliament, lest he should be had up before the Supreme Court of the colony, where the robber aforesaid would be “ unduly represented” in the person of a “relative of his own,” a Judge upon the Bench ; or Mr. Didsbury might print that another honorable member, let ns say, for Verbosity, was declared to be a bankrupt, who has swindled his creditors, and is sitting in Parliament in defiance of the Disqualification Act; or that the maternal grandmother of Mr. Smith, representative of Number One, was no better than she ought to have been, whilst the conduct of Messrs. Toole and Tomkins, the honorable members for Honorarium, was in every way worthy of their constituents. Having the recent shocking example of Jones before our eyes, we desire carefully to guard ourselves from the possible charge of having stated that such things were ever said in the House of Representatives, or were ever published in “Hansard.” We have it is true read something-of the kind, and we heard much worse .things in the lobbies and galleries, which we presume are within the “ walls of Parliament;”*and what we want to know is why the Government Printer should be permitted to gratify his imputed lust of defamation in the one journal, the “ Hansard, ” and not in the other, the “Waka Maori:” why he should be allowed in one case to steal the cow, whilst in the other he is punished for merely looking over the hedge. That is what no “ fellah ” can understand ; and this brings us back to our theme, the malady of imitation, and to prosecution number two of the “Waka Maori.” We have heard that on Saturday last Mr. Sheehan, feeling aggrieved by the publication of a letter in the “ Waka Maori ” so far back as September last, twelve mouths ago, has called upon Mr. Didsbury for an instant apology and substantial reparation for the injury done to him thereby. We have taken the trouble to read the only letters which we can find in the publications for that month, those in the issue of the 19th September, 1876. These are two in number, one from ; Morena Hawea, complaining that his pakeha friends are being driven off their lands' by the chief men of the “ Wananga, ” in whichMv. Sheehan’s name is not directly mentioned. The other from Komenb te Ita, in which he expresses the enjoyment with which he reads in the journals the account of the operations of HenareMatua, HenareTomqana, Hiagka,- and Kakaxtiana, which he says is compared to those of a birdcatcher, who makes his decoy kaka cry ou t to allure the birds to his snare ; Kawenb complains that one bird from his place has already been enticed by their mokai kaka. If there be anything in these letters veiled in the obscurity of the Maori language (of which we are ignorant) or in the perhaps too free translations given with them, which are injurious to Mr. Sheehan, he should at once receive the satisfaction which he desires the remedy is easy, and like the knocking over of the sentry boxes may prevent the spread of a dangerous malady. But we have collated these letters published by Mr. Didsbury with the report of certain recent debates in Parliament, also published by him, and we ask in the name of fairness and justice., why, if he be punishable for the one offence, he cannot be made amenable for • the other and greater! This is a question which will be asked again, and will find echoes from abroad.