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Southland Times, Issue 1596, 25 June 1872, Page 2

The astounding display of ignorance in the leading columns of the Southland News on Wednesday last, pointed out by our correspondent, " A Man's a Man for a' That," might have remained without further notice from us, but for an insinuation made by the News on Saturday, that the letter in question was concocted by ourselves. We take this opportunity of stating most distinctly that we do not manufacture correspondence, and that our readers may depend on every letter that appears in our columns being the genuine production of a writer unconnected with the staff. A similarly explicit statement on the part of the News might help to dispel the very generally prevalent impression that a good deal of the socalled correspondence, which appears in its columns, is manufactured to order on the premises, as occasion requires ; but we hardly expect that such an avowal will be made. We have no wish to express our views under the disguise of a

I fictitious correspondence, nor on the other hand, do we feel bound to take up the quarrels of those of our correspondents who may be unfortunate enough to excite the wrath of other newspaoers. If the News thinks it has sufficiently answered the sarcastic queries of " A Man's a Man for a' That," by calling them " rubbish," the writer " a fool and a knave," and accusing him of misquoting, without showing where or how — we hare no objection. Our correspondent, we believe, is very well able to take care of himself, and may do so or nob, as he thinks proper, for anything we care. But as our own good faith has been called in question, we now give our readers the opportunity of judging for themselves whether there has been any misrepresentation or not. Here is the concluding sentence of the leading article in the News of Wednesday last, quoted verbatim t et literatim : — " The Tichborne claimant has emerged from Newgate on the bail of a lord and several gentlemen — proof sufficient that the result of the civil action has not been considered conclusive by ' persons whom we may suppose qualified to form an opinion. It would be some- ! what remarkable if the result of the trial | — which by the way does not commence j until November next — were the establish- j ment of the claimant's identity with the real Sir Roger. The peerage would thereby acquire a member whose varied experience might be of service in the hereditary legislature. He would be at all events an authority on some colonial subjects." We will not follow the dignified example of the News, and call this paragraph " rubbish," or the writer *' a fool," and we hope our readers will imitate our forbearance. Still it will be difficult for the News to give any interpretation of the above quoted sentences adroit enough to conceal the fact, that the writer knew no better than to imagine that baronets belong to the peerage, and have the 'privilege of sitting in " the hereditary legislature." One cannot help dravring inferences. But perhaps it would be hardly fair to the News to measure the extent and accuracy of the information at the command of that publication by this amusing specimen, although there have been several instances lately of a similar kind, it may be hardly so absurd, which awaken grave suspicions that it is not after all such an oracle as it professes to be. One is reminded at times of the old fable of the ass in the lion's skin. But we have ! not lately been at much trouble to interfere with it, or its pretensions, and would ] not have done so in the present instance, had the News confined itself to answering ] our correspondent, without insinuating that we had adopted the paltry artifice of a manufactured letter. If the News j could only overcome the bad habit of] using " violent and threatening language," j when it is found out, the public might hear less of its little mistakes. To do it justice, we really believe that its bark is worse than its bite, and we await with great equanimity the results of its threat to "go for " the writer and the commentator of the letter which has vexed it so much — when it can spare the space.