EDITORS AND CORRESPONDENTS

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 112, 23 January 1873, Page 2

EDITORS AND CORRESPONDENTS

In the letters of tlw incompetent cntie3, ono mn\ obsci that an nrtiolo is almost always a "lucubration," n \>o a-i "efftisiou" The nwnbiv af correspondents who i down upon you for tho most trifling mibtake lawondi'ri Sonous errors in the very same article will pass unn^k while thirty correspondents will join in o \Wir ihnw triumph over a blunder of tho size of <i pin'b lie.ul 1 blunder will have no organic relation whatever to the m topic, and will furnish no index whatever of cither th« c or the capacity of the author ; but your correspondents v as freely belabour him with abuse an 'l ridicule as if he t a convicted duffer. A friend of mine once (in an uitu made fifty sixpences come to £2 ltK The error hk course, purely mechanical ; he at first took the prne <>f thing spoken of to be a shilling, found out his crroi , .lit >1 the price in the MS , and forgot to alter lus total (>.l< enough, too, his revised proof, in which the error was who corrected, got mislaid; so that the mistake applied print. Then commenced a war-dance of triumphant t coverers. One or two wrote sensible, jocular letteM , 1 the majority poured forth taunts and sarcasms ol i k such aa might perhaps be deserved by a proved " mklu or pickpocket One filled four sides of paper with tin* m elaborato ridicule ; and another sent the contributoi :i d of " Wightinan's Arithmetical Tables," price one penn\ ' may be remarked for the benefit of small fault-finders km ncral, that when human caro lias done its best it wil taken for granted that every newspaper, book, and i^t^ ia contains a certain percentage of error. The tiling ™t u ally excites my wonder is the skdl and accuracy of printer's sharo of tho work. Some of the grammatical i other criticisms whioh editors and contributors receive of an almost incredibly stupid kind. Their arrogaiu eto very striking. Because the man had paid a peuiu or: pence or what-not for his periodical, he seems to thinly li self entitled to sit in judgment upon the whole of it, n lie were the only human being to be catered for, and y an absolutely omniscient scholar. I have been—" cor pondentially" — hunted out of literature as an ignoi ant capable, because I had used the phrase and i^'' c with perfect propriety. The critic had scei. the u-0 °f relative in this form condemned in certain cases, .i. in d carried off the idea that it was never right. "If tlu^jjj meet his eye," I will give him a lesson gratis In tli^V] ing sentence the words and vtftich arc correctly used -"1 lake, which is situated, &c, &c, and which contain^ bracl water' is, &c, &c. In the following they are wrong " This plant, being ashrub, and which bears a red bci i \ ," &c. There ! Some time ago a friend of mine beijan i periodical of large circulation some letters which were ti taken as part of the courtship of a working mm ai housemaid. In these it was of course necessary to put s touche3 of bad grammar j but my friend took great can make those appear to "come natural." It was only successful. The editor received from an educated cc spondendent — dating from far westward — a letter, inforn him that such " ungrammatical stuff" was a disgrace tt> magazine. This, like other tilings of the same Lmd^^. t of no particular significance. But another verdict mus passed upon the number of letters sent, whicli attributes even hise, motives to editors and contributors Spectator lias lat«ly said, quite truly, that if editors wcr print some of the letters they were receiving w eek by w they would have to meet an action for libel for every nun printed — at least, the statement was something like that, at all events, such a statement would be no exaggeration us take an instance or two of correspondent lal virulence. friend of mine cut, in print, a very harmless joke abou Wilfrid Lawson. The edittr immediately got a letter, side 8 long, accusing him, in so many words, of reeei bribes from the publicans to write down Sir Wilfiid. remainder of this precious letter — which is now at my hand — was occupied in stirring up the poor editor's n on the subject of everlasting damnation. Again, a fr of mine once put a few sentences in priDt about vacc tion, expressing no opinion one way or the other, but editor immediately got an abusive letter charging him \ taking bribes from " tho doctors to write up their bea practices : " this letter also contained libellous stateni about these parties. — Saint Pauls.