MUZZLE THAT CUR.

Observer, Volume 6, Issue 150, 28 July 1883, Page 3

MUZZLE THAT CUR.

There is a poor wheezing little literary whelp which answers to the name of The Waitara Press. .This wretched puppy is constantly .snarling at bigger dogs than itself. The creature is owned by a number of: people in Tarauaki 1 from 1 whom it) gets an occasional bone a3 a reward for; standing on its hind legs, or wheezing from behind the shelter of a fence at any person who happens to be obnoxious to its masters. The same owners keep a larger dog at New Plymouth, a half-bred mongrel aprt of animal which has nothing in it but a bark. These two miserable curs have lately gone mad, and have taken to howling at the New' Plymouth correspondent of the Observer They are hounded on by their owners— a small and insignificent section — who are in a blue funk lest strangers should discover their reeking piggeries and dirty back yards, and invoke the aid of the Inspector of Nuisances io the form of public opinion.

Hitherto Taranaki lias ehjoyod quite a blissful immunity, from the light of criticism. The local press, ttobbljed> by the -heads of .the " governing families," haa; not dared,,t& ,ffieak il#r»i|idi.but

New Ply mdu^b: ami Wa\isra;'f 6¥fcnwittt;there ; is>' loud cackle among 'tnlß ! gee3e,'ihe f wretcheGliet{r3 are turned loose," arid' all 'the ruling' families together with their siaters/ cbusirisj and * aunts; set? ; td<work , to nose out. the correspondent, with the object of gagging him iuto silence. The TarariaJci' flews-f-, . an ancientrrooster ■of -the- barn -door, species--, flftos its wings and crows deliriously over the fact t\ : \, u a\,clue r >liaf>^lr|ady>bee'n fStindV. to the i<v':ttity of our too-veracious and plain>spoken, X} -[•■ 'Plymouth xjoirrespondenti -while i itsj con-, te|: v)oia%. howls.' oufc \that.l the ; i Waitara, cor: ; 'sjjbnden^.. v h .•being. ;drawn ,7i nt o Ie san" ' grote".— It- must . be. triily'^ ; tiice' g place whi- 3 the people —..or a section of them— are raid of the light of honest criticism.. We may_J.however, assure them, that though they. may hound down and gag one correspondent after another, we shall find means to checkmate their bare-faced and unscrupulous efforts to muzzle, the press;