The Telephone. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, SATURDAY, APRIL 19.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 110, 19 April 1884, Page 2

The Telephone. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, SATURDAY, APRIL 19.

Thebe are several hackneyed methods of dealing with knotty subjects, when it is found impossible to refute them by clear and sensible reasoning, and which are generally indulged in by crafty disputants desirous of fencing the question at issue. But they are usually so transparent as to militate solely against the manipulator who descends to use them. This is evidently the ground taken up in order to defend the abuse which is now the cynosure of public attention. In other words the “ red herring ” trick is being most liberally resorted to in the shape of those numerous allegations which are being levelled against us because of the attitude which we have taken up with respect to this Hospital question. Not alone do they bear their own refutation, but the reasons for making them are so patent to the whole discerning public as to need but slight notice on our part. But there are one or two instances which we cannot let pass without correction ; such, for instance, as the libellous assertion that we have, either by implication or otherwise, justified the asservation that “the committee are unmitigated rascals, deserving the hulks I” A cursory glance at our remarks will show that the construction is evidently made for the same purpose

and in the same spirit as the glaring falsehood that we had, when “reviewing the finances of the Hospital, ignored a sum of £6C9.” If there is “no need of dragging in the highflown bunkum business,” surely there is no need of dragging in distortion and falsehood. “But he that stands upon a slippery place makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up.” Also the assertion that we have been more actuated by malice than by any desire to bring about reform, taken with the remarks as to the authorship of the correspondence which has appeared in our columns is a proof that “ The villian’s censure is extorted praise,” and comes fittingly from those who have devoted their columns to the abuse of a worthy citizen, for the sole purpose of gratifying the well-known and debased tastes, and malice, of those whom it is sheer charity not to mention. But this sort of thing is only a repetition of that “ instinct ” which leads to the reprehensible and ignoble method of going out of the beaten path of duty, which has ever been trodden by ordinary civilization in modern times ; and not content with legitimately criticising public men for their public acts, descend to the disgraceful and assassin-like method of attacking their private lives —“ and thus I clothe my naked villany, and seem a saint when most I play the devil.” The assertion that “ according to the Government report, our Hospital was lately the most economically managed in the Colony ” is also open to much doubt, when it is seen that in the matter of drugs, for fifty-eight patients last year, a sum of £9O 10s. Gd. is charged as against the sum of £3B Is. 2d. in the Beefton institution for fifty-nine patients. As showing some light upon this point, it may not be out of place tomention that we have before us a statement showing where 330 odd in-patients and upwards of that number of out patients are treated, and yet the drug bill is little in excess of ours for this year. But after all it is most refreshing to hear it acknowledged that there is some room for the practice of further economy, and that there is also some idea of utilising the three-and-a-half acres or so of ground which was to have been leased for the doubtful and insignificant return of a supply of vegetables. Even these small improvements, to be followed we trust with more substantial and important ones, will not alone afford us matter for sincere congratulation but will also tend to refute the calumnious accusation that ours was a “ deliberate attempt to injure the Hospital.” The reasons for such an assertion are too obvious, and are too well known, coming from the source it does, to need any remark from us, and in the end we have little doubt but what it will be acknowledged on all hands that we have done much good and that our sole object was to obtain the greatest amount of benefit at the least cost, and to remedy evils which, did they not exist, could not possibly be improved upon. This agitation arose in the first place out of a correspondence which distinctly alleged gross abuses in certain matters in connexion with Hospital affairs. They were made and published in the very journal which now seeks to lay the onus upon others by importing falsehood and abuse into the matter. When the sub-committee has made its return we will go further into the details and in the mean time leave the public to ponder over the position assumed by our assailant, and also bearing in mind that “too much disputing puts truth to flight.”