DISHONEST JOURNALISM.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIX, Issue 1965, 3 November 1863, Page 4

DISHONEST JOURNALISM.

To the Editor of die Daily Sfevthaii Cross. Sir, — I havo been sin prised of late that you allow your contemporary, the Aew-Zealqqder, to appropiiate your original reports and paragraphs without acknowledgement. The wholesale way in which this is dove is positively disgraceful. Iv law the receiver is as bad as the thief ; bijt I suppose" the" law makes no provision for the protection of a journalist against a class of theft which injures both his purse and his reputation, or you would have applied for an injunction from the Supreme Court to prevent the republication of your special news and reports in the New-Zealander newspaper. *I think it my duty as a citizen and an honest trader, to raise my voice against such a flagrant abuse of editorial .privilege. — Insert this, and oblige, An Auctkland Settler. November 2nd, 1863. t

[Wo are obliged to our correspondent for calling attention to tbis matter. We are powerless, however, to protect ourselves, and have the mortification of seeing columu'-j o f news which cost m a great deal of money, rer, r i n ted in our copteinporary the day after appenr lU q j n our own journal, and that without acknowledging the source. We would not complain of our contemporary living on xis three times a week even, if ne h^ the honesty to quote us in eve\.y case ; hut it is too had to appropriate, and sell t\iat for which we have paid, and -which costs him nothing, and do so in such a way as to induce other and more honest journalists to quote himself, and not us, as the authority for the borrowed news. A most flagrant instance of appropriating our apecial information, a few hours after its publication by ourselves, occurred yesterday. Our Special Correspondent, at great personal risk, rode into Auckland from the Queen's Redoubt last night, bringing details of the capture of Meremere, which ho alone w*« in a position to supply. A few hours after the publication of our paper the proprietor of the New Zecdandcr iuued a lecond edition, appropriating our special report, abridging it clumsily enough, but preserving the pith and in several instances the language, and following the order of narrative. A telegram from his own correspondent followed, dated 2 p.m. Monday, in which there are slight inaccuracies as to facts. The way in which he introduced the article in the cecond edition indicates a wi»h to disguise the fraud, for it is nothing else, and this to our mind increiue* the moral enormity of the offence. How long we are to be subjected to this kind of piracy we cannot lay. We are at the mercy of every person in the province who undertakes to conduct a newspaper without a competent staff, and, unlike other tradesmen, the law makes no provision to protect what is, in fact, our warei. The public alone have the means of checking this.— Ed. D. S. C] » ,

Heal Gentlemen. — A waiter was examined the other day. " Well, Mr. Flunkey, you soy the defendant is no gentleman. What makes you think so?" '"Cause, sir, he always say* 'Thank you,' when I hand him a mutton chop, or even a piece of, bread. Now a, real gentleman never does this, but hollers ont, ' Heie, Bill, get me * mutton chop, or I'll throw thin pepper-box at your head. 1 - You can't deceive me with a gentleman, your worship. 'Causo, why? I have associated with too many at the racecourse..' 1 . wi^ >