REPRODUCTIVE PICTURES.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 553, 11 September 1869, Page 2

REPRODUCTIVE PICTURES.

The following bit of humor appears in the Nelson Colovi.it: — A singular correspondent •who recently w turned i'rom Melbourne, by way of the Bluff, and proceeded as far as Westport, tells » curious tale of Colonial newspaper purchasing' " At Melbourne," he says, " I purchased » copy of ,nn illustrated paper, in -which ap* peared a few middlingly executed woodcut*) prominent among which was a picture of Stamping Batteries, the burning of the Bin* Jacket, and a rather grim likeness of the Hon. Mr. Plunkett, of Sydney. Well, I read this and came on to Dunedin, where I found an " illustrated" paper puhlished there. I bought one and put it in my pocket, to read on the voyage to Lyttelton. Judge of my astonishment when I found th» same

pictures and the Earn© letter-press. At (Jhristchurch, I bought another pictured newspaper, the Illustrated Press, (I had a mania for buying illustrated papera then ; it It cured 0010), and behold! there were the f mie Stamping Batteries, the same inevitable Blue Jacket, the same irrepressible Mr Plunkett! " Sold again!" thought I, and for the last time surely. At Wellington I bought $a English Illustrated London News ; there was no local art, real or pretended, in the way of ft pictured press there. I came to Nelson, and discovered the Illustrated Examinerl I bought again, half suspecting, yet willing to be fooled. Of course, once more Plunkett, again the blazing Bhie Jacket, again the ceaseless Batteries. I fled on board a little steamer, determined to bury myself in the vast solitudes of the West Coast, to be haunted no more by these chap of Modern "Akt." (Put the word in big letters, for I mean artful dodgery.) I got to Westport—primitive, unpretending little town, with its manifold publics el cetera. Here, methought, I am safe from the punishment of pictures, free from the batteries' noise, and the flames of the burning Blue Jacket, and rid for ever of the shade of Plunkett. I walked placidly through the cleanly streots, (there is no mud, because the soil is jandy and absorptive.) Suddenly, Voila .' — The Illustrated Westport Times t Determined to know the worst, I entered and paid my money. " Bang went saspence," as Punch says, (and it was a tall Scotchman who took the coin). There it was again! the Batteries ! the Blue Jacket! ! the Plunkett! ! !" I fled to the nearest public, and for weeks have been in a state of coma, from which I only recovered this morning on seeing the following article in the Westport Times, which I beg you to copy along with my confession of picture dealing, and the hambug of illustrative originality." [Beneath this, our contemporary publishes the article which appear in this paper on the " View of the Entrance to the Buller " in the Illustrated Australian News. We are sorry to spoil a friend's joke, but the " saxpeuce" and the "tall Scotchman" are mythical; and so is, for that part, the entire story. The number of the Illustrated Westpart Times containing the "Batteries, the Blue Jacket, and the Plunkett," was never issued, and, with the exception of a few sheets which present in a variety of attitudes, and on the walls of a kitchen," the " rather grim likeness of the Hon. Mr Plunkett," the whole issue is now for sale at the Westport Times ollice us waste paper.]