South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2389, 12 November 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1880.

Who is Mr Maginnity ? Every now and again in newspaper articles, paragraphs or correspondence the mystic, term “ Maginnity” iloats like a cork to the surface. No classical deity, no heathen poet has ever had Ids name so honored at least in New Zealand literature. Tc Whiti 1 tas figured conspicuously in Taranaki telegrams, and the (ireat ProConsul has flourished in verse and prose, and the gallant major at the head of the Colonial Treasury has been immortalised by the bard of Lambton Quay, but whatever their fame, they have yet to earn the world-wide notoriety of this extraordinary Maginnity. A deceased Christchurch celebrity once wrote an amusing letter on the übiquitous Dr Donald. Before he arrived in the colony he was inspected by Dr Donald, when he took ill and retired to the hospital Dr Donald visited him, when he got drank Dr Donald sent him to gaol, and when he grew sick in confinement Dr Donald stood by his bedside. It seems as if the omnipresent mantle of Dr Donald has fallen on the shoulders of Mr Maginnity. lie appears to be here, there, and everywhere. Every now and then the telegraph olliccrs become surcharged with an angry species of electricity, and the name of Maginnity is groaned forth by the ollicials. The outside public prick their oars and ask, who is this fearful Maginnity, who in spite of every precaution, at the most untimely hours stalks into our parlours like forked lightning t Several months ago —last new year when a telegraphic strike occurred, it was believed that the name of Maginnity had been played out ; that the ghost ot this tenacious and wiry family had been laid. But to ouv astonishment the curtain of the diaffectcd department has again been raised, a hideous skeleton is revealed, and underneath,in conspicuous letters, shines the legend “ Maginnity. The sudden resurrection of Maginnity just as the dry bones of the grievances of our telegraph operators were beginning to crumble into dust is due to a letter that appeared a few days ago in the Auckland “Herald.” The story may be briefly related. A few weeks ago some of the operators were dismissed on the score of retrenchment, and amongst these were some ollicials concerned in the late strike, I hey wont to New South Wales to obtain employment at their profession. According to the Auckland “ Herald ” one of them in a letter to a friend gives the the following astounding narrative ; Mr Walker, the manager at Sydney, “ told me 1 would have to start at a “ accept my services, hut that the Superintendent had received a letter “ from Mr Maginnity, particularly asking “ him not to take on any of the men “ who had struck in New Zealand. Mr “ Walker said he would do his best for “ me.” Here wc have a most serious imputation against the fair fame of the chief of the Maginnity family. The assertion in this letter has travelled in an oblique direction, and wc hope Mr Maginnity, for the sake of his honored name and crest, and for the sake of the colony in which he has found an official refuge, will take immediate steps to refute it. We do not believe the statement for a moment. Until we have ocular proof to the contrary, wo must assume it to be a foul slander on the magnanimity of Dr Lemon’s secretary — the renowned Maginnity. if the Civil Service were ransacked, even to the worst felons in onr prisons, we do not believe a Government employe would be found so base as to seek in a distant colony to deprive a fellow man of the I means of earning an honest living. The blood of all the Maginnitys, past I and present, would grow cold and recoil against anything so ineffably mean—so | morally reprehensible. To say that Mr Maginnity could be capable of j writing sneb a letter as is alleged is to assume that bis human nature has forsaken him, and that the electric current of his soul lias drifted into a deadly malicious channel. Wc are strengthened in onr belief that this imputation is a slander, because wo are satisfied that any oflicer capable of writing such a letter would not be retained in the public service of the colony for a second. To insinuate that such a document has found its way to New South Wales, is to allege that wc have in New Zealand reptiles of a far more hurtful and dangerous character than those that haunt the Australian bush. Even bushrangers never attempt to deprive j honest men of their living. The assassin shoots his enemy from behind, but he mercifully aims at his life, and not at his means of earning his subsistence. To secretly follow a man through the world and manacle his hands before be puts the bread to bis lips, hi a kind of implacable vengeance that, fortunately for humanity, bus never been known. Wc do not believe that in New Zealand, or, for that matter in any oilier British colon} - , an individual can be found wearing a white skin and capable of such impotent malice. The reputation of the Civil Service of the colony requires that this stigma should be investigated. Anything so cowardly as the proceeding ascribed (falsely wc hope) to Mr Maginnity, wo have never heard of. But our credit with the Australian Governments demands that the stain should be rubbed out. It is a terribly black one, and the lunger it remains the more indelible it will seem. We believe it to be a vile

calumny, but if so tbc calumniator should be exposed, and, if possible, punished. If it is not a calumny then the author and every one that sympathises with him must be denounced if they cannot be expatriated, ibe individual, who under any provocation, would hunt his fellow man through the world in the way in which these telegraph operators arc said to have been hunted in New South Wales, is something' infinitely less than a man, and if such a miserable persecutor really exists he must be torn from his lair and held up to universal opprobium.