THE QUEENSTOWN GENIUS OF THE "SOUTHERN MERCURY."

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 870, 9 October 1874, Page 3

THE QUEENSTOWN GENIUS OF THE "SOUTHERN MERCURY."

Dear Mr Editor,—Being one of those unfortunate " snobs" who has to plead guilty to the wearing of a " white-waistcoat," and smarting as I do under the severe .strictures laid upon me by " Our own correspondent, Queenstown," in a recent number of the Southern Mercury, 1 fly, Sir, to you for redress. Can you, Mr Editor, give me any precise information as to who wields that pen so promiscuous in the use of adjectives and other qualifying words and phrases] I ask because 1 have long wondered why the talented Editor should admit such fortnightly twaddle into columns for which he is responsible ! There are, I believe, many readers of the Southern Mercury who would readily subscribe to present him, or her, or both, with a copy of "Lindley Murray," which might afford relief from that indefinite condition of our district, which is described as " du'ler than dull," provided our ungrammatieal friend or friends would study it. If such an article as a "Johnson" should be at hand the word tautology might, with advantage, be referred to. After the satire still being heaped upon your "azure field" I am hardly prepared for his, or her, or their, "less than nothing" " reckless ironies", " bloodthirsty ravening," "truculent white waistcoats, aud starving and gloomy dogs" (as stinking features in a landscape), " moulders damply along," &c, &e. But amongst the various Hibernianisms which abound, few of us, perhaps, did not shudderat that jump from the pathetic to the ridiculous when we read the words ' lifeless corpse." I have not, Mr Editor, it is true, seen many corpses, but cannot call to mind any occasion on which I beheld one that was not " lifeless." Of course, Sir, it is alien to my intentions even to criticise the satanic slang wdiich is introduced in the next paragraph. In conclusion, I repeat, can you give me the name or names of the party which so indiscriminately fling "adjectives and things" up and down on the deserving and undeserving alike—eveu to the poor little trout tails? 1 have already hinted at Hibernian authorship. Will the "landscape" paragraph and the feeling tone of legal allusions aflord any clue to the remainder ? I am, my dear Mr Editor, compelled to subscribe myself an offending White-Waistcoat. Queenstown, Oct. 6.