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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5143, 17 September 1877, Page 2

It is not because the Evening Post never neglects an opportunity of, and frequently itself creates one for abusing the New Zealand Times, that we notice it now. The persistent and coarse manner in which that journal endeavors by slandering us to create for itself a position has never hurt the Times, and whilst it has amused, has done no small injury to the Post. Therefore, as we have said, in noticing our local contemporary on the present occasion, wo do so from no personal standpoint, but simply because a little advice may do it good, and some few comments on it may be of public benefit. Our contemporary now and again does something in the newspaper line, such as the prooural of a donkey-engine, or the publication of a revolting account of a flogging in the public gaol, and then and thereupon it is in the habit of sounding its own trumpet in one long discordant note of praise. This is generally accompanied by a crescendo movement intended to indicate its contempt for some other local journal, which it pronounces, with Persian personality, to be an eater of dirt and a son of a burnt father. The latest instance of this kind of thing furnished by the Post was found in the publication of what — Heaven save the mark —was called “Special Cable War News.” This spe L cial cable news turned out to be valuable merely becauso it promoted discussion. Professing to come from London (and wo do not doubt that it did so), it at the same time was of so singularly indefinite a character that numerous conjectures were made as to. whether the news came from London or not; or even supposing it did, as to whether someone in Australia or nearer home did not add considerably to its length ‘ and its original worthlessness. We do not adopt the latter theory, but merely note that early last week it seemed to bo felt either in London, or somewhere else, that an eflort must be made to give the “ special cable war news ” interest, and accordingly interest was given to it with a vengeance.

Under half-a-dozen head-lines the fall of Plevna was announced, and in exaggerated terms a picture of the tremendous Turkish discomfiture was given, whilst the crushing defeat and consequent fearful effect upon the Turkish cause were pourtrayed arid commented on in language wherein bombast and bad grammar strove for a mastery. The news mentioned should, by its'*important nature, have relieved all doubt, but even at the moment our spirited contemporary was sending copies of it to his Excellency the Governor, and: selling an unprecedentedly large number of Extras, there were not wanting sceptics who refused to believe in its authenticity. That did not prevent the Post, however, from hoisting up a heap of metaphorical flags and lanterns in its pages, which, beginning in pseans to its own praise and diatribes against all and sundry of its contemporaries, terminated on Saturday evening in a patronising explanation as to why several days had elapsed and Reuter’s agents had not received news of the fall of Plevna. But the Post of Saturday had not been long issued before Reuter’s agents had obtained a much better explanation than that kindly given them by the Post. They had not received nows of the fall of Plevna, for the very simple roasonth.it Plevna had not fallen. The Post proprietors finding this out on Sunday, we understand, waited on one of these gentlemen in a family deputation, dragged him out of his house, and published as an extra the contradiction of their “special war news.” And it is at this point that the Post, from being simply foolish previously, becomes absolutely dishonest. The telegrams in the Extra were not acknowledged as coming from Reuter’s Agency, but were prefaced by an explanation which would lead the reader to infer that they had been obtained by the Post, and were published by it at once in order to correct the error of the former telegram. That former telegram only rendered the enterprising proprietors of the Post liable to being suspected of being befooled by agents in London or Australia ; but the Extra in question undoubtedly lays them open to a charge of suppressio veri amounting to the usual complement of such an act. We regret that this should have occurred, for it tends to take away the sympathy we should otherwise have felt for the Post even.in the depth of its disappointed braggadocio and insolence. In the public interest, however, we now appeal to it to amend its ways, to content itself with true and not false enterprise in journalism, with efforts to be ahead of its fellows in speaking to the public and informing the public, which it can never do by the publication of untrue intelligence, or by filling its columns with coarse abuse of its contemporaries.