THE ABC PAPERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6936, 9 February 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE ABC PAPERS.

'■ From grave to gay, from lively to severe." WE. Fancy a little man with a big nose, a short black pipe in hie mouth, a battered old hat etuck jauntily on one side of bis head, and a paste pot before him. .He holds a large pair of scissors in one hand and a newspaper in the other, and is surrounded by a litter of clippings on table and floor. The table is ricketty, probably from having been neglected in its youth, and the floor has not been muoh troubled with brush or broom, being dirty, like a larrikin's face, for want of a Bornbbing. In short, the whole affair gives you the idea that larrikinism is in possession. Around the walls are pasted various words in large letters, such as " Irresponsibility," "Anonymous," "Infallibility," "Conceit," and "Power."

Behind the chair on which the little man with the old hat is seated is an old-fashioned cabinet with a number of pigeon-holes in the upper portion. These pigeon-holes are labelled, "Sensation," " ±Sig Turnips," "Eights," "Wrongs," "Humbug," and "Thunder."

In this sanctum there are two open windows, one on each side of the room. Over each window in big letters are the words "Public Ooinion."

At one of these windows is seated a smutty-faced boy in his shirt sleeves. Whenever the wind blows it is the little boy's business, at certain times, to toss up a few feathers. As these feathers are blown into the iittleroom, the little boy collects them and deposits them on the rickotty table before which the little man with the scissors is seated.

When there is no current at one window, the smutty-faced boy goes to the other, and tosses up the feathers there, which he collects and passes on to the table as before

You aok what this curious medley means, who the little man is, and what ho is doing ?

The little man is the editor of a newspaper called "The DictatoE." He, and tbe paste pot, and the seiesors are the component parts of the well known and immortal " We."

At intervals, longer or shorter, the little man lays down the scissors, and seizes a stumpy pen with which he scrawls a few sentences on a slip of paper lying before him, dabbing on a "clipping " here and there. From time to time the little man blows a cloud from his short black pipe, and with a contemptuous air occasionally blowing away into the . waste basket, the little piles of feathers which the smutty faced boy had placed before him, saying to himself the while, "I am Sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips, let no dog bark." . The subjecb which is engaging the attention of the little man is the spoeoh of Mr. Tubmaker, a member of a " public body " in the email town where the little man's den ie situated. Mr. Tabmaker has had the temerity to question the right of the terrible little "Wβ" to browbeat, and command the members of the " public body" of whioh Mr. Tubmaker has the honour of being a young and ardent member.

Mr. Tubmaker has been guilty of insisting that "The Dictator" ought to be asked to give an account of its "articles." Presumptuous Mr. Tubmaker! He surely had never heard of the " Three Tailors of Tooley-street,"who, each furnished with a goose and a pair of scissors, had iesued a manifesto in the columns of the " Tooley-street Gbukteb," beginning with, " We the people of England, etc." If Mr. Tubmaker ever had beard of the " Three Tailors," and their scissors, it was dear enough that he was densely ignorant of the "little clipper," and his scissors, the terrible " Wβ" of the " Ranting street Dictator."

The little man, with the short black pipe, was about to let him realise hie mistake —in short, "to let Mr. Tubmaker have it." Looking round his den in a fierce and excited manner, the eyes of our "We "fell upon the portentous labels on the wall before him.

Looking fiercely at the labels, " Irresponsibility " and " Infallibility," the steam began to rise in "We's" boiler, as might be seen from the clouds of smoke he rapidly puffed from his ehort black pipe. Moving quickly round to the old-fashioned cabinet, he plunged his hand into the pigeonhole marked " Humbug." The next instant he dived into the hole labelled "Thnnder."

What inspiration he drew from these two holes, nobody knew.

But, seizing his pen and plunging it excitedly into the aesthetic inkstand before him, this is what he wrote:— -" As for Mr. Tubmaker's demand that the Dictator shall be called to account by the Board for something, he should know that the Press gives account to ho man. It demands an account from public men, and, speaking with the thunder of the public voice, compels them to render such account, even aa now, with the strong force of a united public feeling at our back, we have compelled the Board to do our bidding. But the Press knows no master, and recognises the right in no man to ask it what dost thou, or wherefore dost thou this?"

Has anything equal to this ever been written or said uince the old Viking Canute placed his chair on the shore, and bid the advancing waves not dare to wash, his sacred feet ? Or, haa the Inquisition come again, and is " We " the Chief Inquisitor? Or, has the "Ranting street Dictator" fallen heir to the Divine right of some old despotic King, who could do no wrong, and whose commands uone might question, or say, " What dost thou ?" Or, is the "Press" an old tyrant in new clothes ? This is a free country. Its climate will be found to disagree with tyrants of all sorts — whether King, Dictator, or Editor. Tho influence of " We," when wisely wielded, is deservedly great. Bnt, when " We " forgets its duty, or gives itself ridiculous little airs, we shall insist oa spelling it with an additional " e," and write it down " Wee." J.

[In his wayward wanderings, our contributor falls upon some raro adventures, and finds himself occasionally in strange companionship. It was but a few weeks ago when bo was gathering apples that he fell from the top of a ladder, and we were agonised in following him down, down, down. "Ever more, evor more, that was my doom falling, falling, evermore; the moonlit zone, the atar-lit heavens—Pleiades, OrioD, Sirius, and the Groat Boar, the grand empyrean, zones of constellations, the laws affecting gravitation, attraction, repulsion, heat, motion, and common sense, were blended in irretrievable confusion, and never, nover more ; horrible, miserable atom that I was, in terror, terror. What a fate; amid lurid crimson flush, and brillliant blue rays of ghastly light, atid a blood-red central glow and tho most dreadful burst of thunder mortal ever heard, I drifted into hell! " But happily he was permitted to revisit the pale glimpses of the moon and renew tho story of his experiences of travel amid the quaint earie scenes which his cccentrio fancy tavoure. This time ho has visited, if not the same place, seeDtingly its antitype on earth, au editor's den. But such a den' Surely if found on this earth the etaff must have accompaniod him from the realms below, or can it bo that wo have here but another page from his diary oE subterranean travel ? and is he reproducing a picture of journalism ae it is conducted in the realms of Pluto ? We incline to think this, for though the touch of journalism so ennobles that but few of our order can deserve to be consigned to a scene to which our respected contributor appears to have so naturally gravitated on falling from tho apple tree, still thoro are these who for their journalistic peccadilloes deserve such a fate. And this perhaps was one of them, and his evil genius is with him. still, for even there he cannot forego the evil habit of stealing of other people's thunder, and we hear from tho innermost recesses of that infernal editorial den the dim and distant reverberation of the very words in which wo have ourselves, here in this upper world uttered, that noble declaration gof the omnipotent independence of the Press whioh has delighted all our readers. This is what makes us think that our respected contributor of the A. B.C. Papers has been either again visiting the old haunts or that he is treating us to a fresh page from his subterranean diary. That little man with a big nose, a short black pipe in his mouth, a battered old hat stuck jauntily on one side of his head, and a paste-pot before him, was just the disembodied • spirit of sorno unfortunate editor in life who probably had truokled to the powerful on earth, who had been placed in a position whero he was demanded of conscience to speak the truth, but had been silent; instead of valiantly defending the interests of the helpless, he had probably chosen the far jpleasanter lot of basking in the smiles of the

great; when public interests were being sacrificed, he would give no expression to the public dissatisfaction, but, allying himself with the defence of those in authority, had winked at the malversation of public interests. These were the journalistic sins for •which, an editor might have been fittingly consigned to the realms of darkneae, followed by the maledictions of a wronged and injured people. The Burroundings oi his den, as seen by our contributor, are exactly such as we would expeot, intended at once to madden him with the memory of power and opportunities lost, and fitted to insult, him wita suggestions of the degradation to which he had been reduced. "Irresponsibility," "Anonymous," "Infallibility," "Conceit," and "Power" were printed on the walls, and_ the pigeon-holes were labelled " Sensation," "Big Turnips," "Rights," " Wrongs," " Humbug," and " Thunder." Poor wretch, how he must curse tho memory of those who had flattered him, only .to use him for their purposes, and then flung him aaide when they had clone with him, like a dead dog/ Bow bitterly in his remoree he must wish be had his life to live again. How he would stand.up for the right, how he would espouse the cause of justice; how he would speak up for public rights. But it is too late, too * late, too late 1 With only a dirty-iaced little boy to wait on him, amusing him with blowing feathers as he thinks of how he had neglected to take note of pubiio opinion. And, oh ! with what bitterness of boul he ponders on the power of honest journalism as he thinks how he might, by faithfulness to his trust and to the cause of trutn, have rallied the whole body of the people round him, and giving honest expression to their will, have proclaimed in voice of thunder, in the very words which he has parodied in the agooy of his remorse—a voice calculated to strike terror into every evil consoience— " But the Prets knows no master, and recognises the right in no man to ask it, ' What doesl; thou or wherefore doab thou this?'" Wβ feel deeply indebted to our contributor for picturing to us an unfaithful and timeserving editor suffering thus the torments of the lost; and we hope it will be a warning to every editor to be honest to his trust, and to never be seduced from the paths of truth and faithfulness. But now that our contributor has had experience of the den of a lost editor in the realms of woe, we invite him to view the contrast in an earthly sanctum where equity and truth reign, and peace with honour comes the reward of a conscience void of offence. Let him visit us in our sanctum. See the editor reclining in a chair o£ crimson velvet, a chaplet of bay leaves on his manly brow, a mild Havanna in his lips, a bottle of Roederer by his right hand. See the. smile of benignant happiness that flits acroas his noble countenance as on the atmosphere laden with the odour of Frangipanni blending with the vapourous perfume of hie Cuba, there reverberates the hum of the distant people's plaudits, " Well done, faithful servant." No smutty-faced boy in his shirt sleeves is there, but youths in robes of white and clean washed, shining morning faces wait upon him. See him as he raises in his white-gloved fingers that gilded and bejewelled goose-quill with which he strikes terror into the heart of the ■wrongdoer; aot ink, but electric flashes flow from it, every scintillation freighted with death to evil; and looking on this picture and then on that, let our contributor tell how different the rewards that fall to honest, fearless journalism, as compared with the fate of him who has betrayed bis trust for the smiles of power, and sacrificed the interests of the people at the shrine of servility, waving ever aloft that incense of perpetual flattery which ie bo fragrant in the nostrils of the great.—fX.Y.Z.]