THE MAGISTERIAL DELINQUENCY AT WESTPORT.

Westport Times, Volume 1, Issue 141, 13 January 1868, Page 3

THE MAGISTERIAL DELINQUENCY AT WESTPORT.

(from the nblsok corosriST, .taist. 10.) Speaking of the duties of poets in the times of which these writers occupied a position annalogous in a certain sense to that of a newspaper of the present day, the poet Dryden, in a dedicatory epistle prefixed to his translation of the Satires of Juvenal, says: —

" One reason which will justify a poet when lie writes against a particular person is when such person becomes a public nuisance. All those whom Horace in his Sath-es, Persius and Juvenal have mentioned in theirs with a brand of infamy, are such. 'Tis an action of virtue to make examples of vicious men. They may and ought to be upbraided with their crimes and follies, both for their own amendment if they are not yet incorrigible, and for the terror of others, to hinder them from falling into such enormities."

This was written, some one hundred and eighty years ago, and had reference to the useful moral influence of the Roman poets and satirists in scourging and restraining vice and folly, especially when these were unblushingly paraded in high places. The same truth still holds in our day. If our present Prince of "Wales were to emulate the vices of him who became George IV. there would—notwithstanding the inevitable decay of public morals which co-exist with a low state of court morality —be found many pens which, in the interests of social well-being and good example, would readily denounce the vices and satirise and censure those who practise them, and who thus " set the fashion" which undermines public virtue. Flagrant disregard for appearances on the part of men high in office and authority,—an unnecessary parading by such men of vicious companionship, the offspring of vicious inclinations, which no sense of shame and respect for public decency will induce fhe shading of by even a thin veil of circumspection, these things are an insult to an entire community. And when such things are done in open day, the public critic, who is deeply impressed with an impelling sense of what he owes to his station and constituents, would fall in his own self-respect if he failed to notice and condemn such breaches of public morality, and such insolent contempt for sound social usages. These, we admit, are platitudes that' may easily suggest themselves, or at least gain ready acquiesence in our readers' minds; but we believe they form the princples of action of many public writers, who forget their own identity in the object they desire to advance. Ve hesitate for a moment to ask—"What was our motive for writing all this obvious prologue ? Is is possible that its necessity may have arisen from a vague sense of the existence of an

opinion (barely acknowledged, but floating moire or less indistinctly iu some sections of tho public mind), that the errors and follies of public men aud men in position should not bo publicly commented on? Are there many poo pie who are influenced by the idea that it would bo better, say —" for tho sake of public morals," to have those •occurrences quiotly hushed up, because they effect the character of prominent men? Havo these preliminariy remarks been produced by a lurking notion of a necessity to reason somo portions of the public into a conviction that flagrant offences on the part of leading men call for double indignation and tenfold censure ? Is it really necessary to " argue" in favor of such a doctrine ? We hope not. It was, we believe, from being imbued with opinions like those we have exprescd, and being shocked by a public scandal, the writer in a Westport paper mildly hinted at certain doings of Mr Commissioner Kynnersley, whoso feminine relationships he stated had been openly displayed, as if to add a certain zest to a Westport holiday. There is said, too, to be more behind what has appeared on the surface; but (if the statement thus made be correct), the exhibition of moral taste publicly made during Christmas holidays by a man entrusted with the control of the better part of a hundred thousand pounds a year, and with the supervision of a large population to whom such an overseer as Mr Kynnersley is bound to show a good example, was such as to demand a much more stern and direct reproof than was contained in the mild and allusive reference thereto in the Westport journal. We shall say nothing of the " harmlessness of the dove," because that is out of place in this connection; but, if the story is true, had Mr Kynnersley possessed even a modicum of the "wisdom of the serpent," he would quietly have acknowledged the jiistiee of the rebuke; and accepted it as a warning to restrain him from again offending the public sense of decorum. If the statement were false —and we wish earnestly it were, —Mr Kynnersley had his legal remedy ; and no possible provocation, short of imminent or absolute physical attack, could have warrauted the Commissioner's subsequent assault made in cold blood on the editor'©f tho Westport Times. But, in matters of morals and the fitness of things some men entertain singular sentiments," Mr Kynnersley, Justice of the Peace, Chief Kesident Magistrate, Commissioner of the Groldfields, a Naval Officer, and, by consequence, a "gentleman," —deliberately, with malice aforethought, and to the disgrace of his office as an administrator of the law, proceed to a newspaper office, and there commits a brutal assault on the person of a gentleman to whom, we consider, the public at large is indebted for what he published in condemnation of the moral ladies of any man who should have been a pattern and an ensample to the thousands who looked to him as the principal official in a large district whose moral condition requires high-toned conduct from all in authority. The Magistrate who, in such circumstances, in direct breach of the law, performs a shameful assault on the face and head of a fellow-citizen, guiltless of any offence, has, ipso facto, indelibly disgraced his office, and forfeited his position ; and the next thing we hope to hear of as a just punishment and a proper example as well as a vindication of outraged law, is that his Honor the Superintendent has intimated to Mr Commissioner Kynnersley the propriety of transmitting the resignation of his office; and that the Commission of the Peace is no longer burdened with his name. Mr Stafford has ere this shown vigorous action in deposing officials with much less reason than this case offers. We hope he will not shrink now. There is no middle course if magistrates are to be " a terror unto evil doers, and a praise of such as do well."