SHAME!

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 193, 8 September 1888, Page 2

SHAME!

In our last issue we thought it necessary, as a public matter, to comment on the recent libel case, and in doing so we endeavored to refrain from any semblance to that tone which might appear to savor of a desire to crow over a downfallen journalist. We could not con. done the offence of which Baldwin had been guilty, and as a blot upon journalism we deeply regretted it; we fully endorsed the verdict, and congratulated Mrßourke. In short we treated the matter as delicately as we could without losing sight of our duty to the public. But we hope we may never be guilty of the shameful conduct of our evening contemporary; we do not believe that Mr Bourse's best friends or the prisoner’s worst foes can do otherwise than regard the article of Thursday evening ns a most contemptible attack on a man who has been condemned to a prison celt, who is now undergoing the punishment for his crime, and who cannot make reply. Again we say there could be no justification for that man’s conduct, we assert that he was let off lightly, and repeat that Mr Bourke took the only honorable course. But what possible justification can there be for our contemporary's underhand thrusts now ? "Oh, shame, where is thy blush ?” For hie misdeeds the man has brought himself down to the lowest—then why should he now be spat upon ? Is it manly for a journal which affected to ignore the existence of another journal to at once recognise and bitterly denounce it when it could no longer reply—to |exult over its downfall. Why does it not deride those who bought the paper, people whom the Chief Justice declared were worse than the prisaner ? It dare not do so, and seeks (to evade the point. We deny that Baldwin ever had.it in his power to do what has been attributed to him, though as to what weight the print really had is more than we are competent to judge, because (apparently unlike our contemporary) we were not of those who supported it; but what this has to do with the libel is quite incomprehensible to ua. When a man is.already suffering for his misdeeds, those whom he has injured should spare the lash: those who have not been so injured would show’more manliness themselves if they stood by and let justice take its own course, or Retribution may one day have more than the one sinner to castigate.