The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JULY 16, 1867.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 164, 16 July 1867, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JULY 16, 1867.

A correspondent who, some few days, since, favored us with a letter which, if published; would have occupied at least three columns of our very limited space, has again addressed us in highly indignant terms, attributing the non-insertion of his communication to a blind aud wilful insensibility ou our part to what he is pleased to term the "merits" of Mr Stevens's rail-way-scheme, and moreover asserting, in a style which is somewhat too authoritative for our taste, his right to use the columns of tliis journal as a vehicle for the public expression of his own peculiar aud not always very comprehensible ideas od this much vexed subject. We have our own views as to the probable feasibilityof the formation of a railway to the West Coast, and should heartily rejoice to see such a project realised, either through the instrumentality of Mr Stevens, or by any other medium; we have therefore thought it our boumleu duty to the public, as far as lay in our power, to afford to both sides of the question a fair and equable representation; and this statement will, we are confident, be fully borne out by a reference to our files. We at least, have not permitted this journal to constitute itself the partial opponeut of a scheme, the soundness and practicability of which could ouly be adequately tested by the keen and penetrating scrutiny of men of business, accustomed by long experience to scan such projects and qualified to detect almost at a glance their weak points or their practical character. We, at all events, shall not permit ourselves, dazzled by the magnificent mirage which Mr. Stevens' prospectus, published in this morning's Colonist, presents to the bewildered gaze of the Nelson public, suddenly to veer round and declare ourselves enraptured with its attractions aud fairly astonished at the capacity which could have devised a document of so " exhaustive a nature." Whatever may be the " merits " of Mr. Stevens' project, we, at least, shall be conteut to wait patiently • until it shall have passed through a more searching ordeal than it is likely to be exposed to in Nelson. It is however with our indignant correspondent that we have now more particularly to deal. We insist upon it that people generally have no more reason to expect that they should make use of our columns, unless we ia courtesy choose to permit them, or they as advertisers choose to pay for thera, than they have to wear our Sunday coat, or insist on sitting down with us to our Sunday joiut. We should not mind the latter, with an old and pleasaut friend— rone willing to dispense .with ceremony, dine early, and not expect more thau one plain pudding. But cor- • respondents are not always pleasaut, and far from being profitable. Courage too — moral courage we mean — is not a quality they abound in; they sometimes like to say sharp and saucy things, and at the same time to keep their incognito aud withhold their card, if you will let them do so. Like Teucer in the Iliad, they like to use a broadsheet as he did the broad shield of Ajax, as a shelter under which to fly the arrows. But if anything unpleasant happens to arise out of their effusions, they have afc times a most decided reluctance to stand forth and face the consequences. ( ISot only is the unfortunate editor ex-

pected lo find paper, types, and ink for their amusement, but to bear the brunt aud the blame, of whatever they put forth. One would have thought that by this time people would have understood this. Nevertheless, if at this moment you refuse a long-winded or unmannerly scribbler the use of your columns, he talks and writes largely abont the right of public discussion, and vapors indignantly against your denial, as though your journal were the Post-office, and would not carry his letters, or the medical officer of a charitable institution, and declined to prescribe for a patient admitted into it upon the recommendation of a subscriber.