Scandal Mongers.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 170, 17 July 1888, Page 1

Scandal Mongers.

The Wellington people have been much exercised lately as to the question of the morality of their town, and much of a nanseating nature has been one of the necessary results. “ Puff” walks into some of them in *he following style :— How is it that such notions crop up period!. Daily, as they do, if there is'n't really any development of the kind alleged ? Dear boy, the nasty season comes round as regularly as the big gooseberry season or the war scare season 1 There is a certain number of old women of both sexes who can't get along without some sort of false excitement, and this is how they like to take theirs I It amuses them and does'n’t hurt anybody else I Oh, but hang it all, it dose hurt somebody I It's a slander on our girls and our boys and their parents and teachers and everybody conneoted with them I Besides, it's very bad reeding, when it gets into print I It goes in at one eye and out at the other ! Most people skip the lot I They're full up of Buoh stuff I Atkinson’s going to bring a bill to deal with the question I If he’d bring in a Bill for the spiflioiation of scandalmongers it would be more to the purpose 1 These foul wretches do more harm and cause more sin and sorrow than anybody else | But what punishment could be prescribed for them ? Dante placed them in the lowest pit of Hell, but there’s no necessity for us to interfere in those little matters I We can safely leave them to take their appointed course 1 What would you do, then ? What I should suggest is this 1 In olden days in England, they kept in many village* a machine called the ducking stool, a long plank, on a trestle, with a seat at the end, and with this, they ducked scolds in the horu pond I Now I think it would have an excellent effect if a few of the Grand Arch-Scandal-Mongers in this place were publicly ducked in the harbor every Sabbath morn, pour ancourager lei autres I Just off the mouth of one of the mam sewers ? No, they would’n’t mind(that I They would be in a thoroughly congenial element! I should treat them with refined severity, and half drown them in perfectly pure water for a ch ange I * some of the worst scandal-mongers are in a -ocial position ! ?s°°“ “■-.k '«« ought to gat an extra dip or ten h e “ ‘■'“’ir position, what they call ‘wo. because it’s i.. makeg 'their their respectability, ■ t 0 their victims I slanders so cruelly injuric h <ps a little bapti«m S i th ?‘ ,88 oJ WeH, pen. - of public nsm in the wholesome water* opinion may do something to x them 1 v, I k°P e it ma y 1 I wish them no harm 11. like Burns, I should wish even the devil to repent and be saved 1