PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 1881. MR BRYCE AND THE SCRIBE.

Patea Mail, 9 April 1881, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 1881. MR BRYCE AND THE SCRIBE.

That veracious correspondent who once held a position on General Grant’s staff is again in trouble. He has been libelled this time by an cx-Defence Minister, and as usual he dclarcs everything said against him to bo untrue, and challenges his traducers to meet him at Phillipi, in a court of law, or the columns of the press. But this “ special correspondent ” proves too much. He cannot correct some trifling inaccuracy among his indictments, for he is wrong in nothing, and he never has been wrong, but only wronged by everybody. In like manner there was a Major Yelverton, in an English cause eelebre , who was shown to be so innocent and immaculate that he was described by the opposing counsel as a “ poor gentle sucking dove.” Notoriety of some kind is as indispensable to certain people as ever was “The triumph and the vanity, The rapture of the strife” to the great Napoleon. But is it right to incite the hopes of the legal fraternity so often with the prospect of a rich and entertaining libel suit, and to carry terror by these threats to the hearts of ex-Defencc Ministers and others ? It was surprising to hear of no similar warning given to the Premier when he said something uncomplimentary on this subject in the House. Time and space would fail us to enumerate the various persons, newspapers, etcetera, even in this district, that have been threatened with legal proceedings and vengeance dire, by this much maligned manufacturer of newspaper sensations.

But, alas for any chance of such employment for local lawyers ! he discovered there was no justice to be obtained in Taranaki, and he would go without a remedy rather than seek it there. This is the more strange because he has the pen of a too ready writer—a slippery facile instrument, and has besides no inconsiderable indulgence in at least one court where his base detractors meet with little more consideration than ho obtains in Taranaki, viz., the columns of a Christchurch newspaper. About the time that “ General Grant’s staff” became prominent in America, a pushing newspaper in that country used to publish frequent sensational accounts of how its editor had been “ thrashed within an inch of his life,” or “ kicked and assaulted in Broadway by a ruffian,” and so on. So great was his anxiety to secure such piquant articles that ho was said to glory in bis sufferings. Special correspondents in America are not always valued in the exact order of their veracity, although effrontery is highly prized. Anyone who had not enjoyed some American “ special ” training would have been silenced by the famous swamp story alone: but there is no silencing a correspondent who, “even though vanquished, can argue stilland who now, like that broth of a boy at Donny brook, implores the ex-Native Minister to “ thread on the tail o’ me coat.” We hope “ honest ” John Bryce won’t oblige him, but will allow people to accept “honest” Croumbie’s statements in preference to his if they so please, and will disregard the buzzing of a troublesome mosquito.