New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5150, 25 September 1877, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1877.

The telegrams from the seat of war which were, received by ns and issued as extras yesterday afternoon and evening are pregnant with interest. They will be found in another column of this paper, and it may be noticed that the extras containing them were purchased by the public yesterday in greater quantities than on any previous occasion. In connection with this matter, we may be pardoned for remarking on a matter upon which we commented once previously. The Evening Rost yesterday contained some of that “ special cable news ” with which people are how pretty familiar. It may be remembered that when “ special cable hews ” announcing the fall of Plevna turned out to be simply untrue, our ingenious contemporary explained that it was right in fact, with the trifling exception that Plevna had not fallen. The explanation was accompanied by that abuse of the New Zealand Times without which it is impossible for the Post to discuss anysubject. This, however, there is no necessity to notice. But we may point out that in the case of its “special cable news” of last night the Post (if it will not take friendly advice and quietly give the thing up) had better get ready to furnish a fresh explanation. For that special cable news in regard to the Russo-Tuikish war followed in the wake of its predecesor, and announced exactly the thing which was not. It stated that the Turks had been defeated withaloss of 2600 men, and that the Russians still held their positions. That was either a very bad guess by a correspondent somewhere or another, or was an instance of a correspondent being woefully deceived. For Reciter’s telegrams show that the Turks have not been beaten, that the Russians have lost their positions, and that the Turks are so flushed with victory that they refuse even a proposal forpeace so long as a single Russian soldier remains on Turkish soil. Of course this contradiction will be explained away somehow or another, and the New Zealand Times, for having pointed it out, will be called double-barrelled names. It is likely, tod, that we shall be shown how the “ special cable news ” contained intelligence of the safety of Stanley, the African explorer, which was corroborated by Reuter. But this latter circumstance is susceptible of easy explanation. Telegrams of Reuter’s from; Europe frequently appear in the Sydney and Melbourne morning papers, in addition to those which appear in the Now Zealand papers too. This is caused by their having arrived in Australia after the hour at which telegraphic communication is opened between New South Wales and New Zealand. Some such thing there is little doubt happened yesterday, and it is more than probable that the news about Stanley and some war news in addition to that published by us was published in Melbourne and Sydney yesterday morning. How it got into the subsequent “special cable news” we do not pretend to explain. Of course the Post did not accept the advice we gave it before under circumstances like the present, and of course it will not accept that advice now. But if it could only realise how little its “ explanations,” compounded as they are of subterfuge and scurrility, go down with the public, it would be more amenable to reason. This “ special cable news,” we are sorry to say, of itself has been calculated to do it no small injury ; but that injury has been rendered greater by its attempting to brazen the matter out, instead of at once candidly acknowledging that it had been deceived, and throwing the blame on the proper shoulders, by putting it upon a correspondent, and then taking effectual measures to prevent a repetition of that correspondent’s performances. This, however, could scarcely have been expected. As there are some animals which it is impossible to persuade, so there are.some people to whom it is useless to offer advice, and recognising this psychological fact, we say no more.