The Southland jfeics and Foveaux Straits

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 11, 16 December 1862, Page 2

The Southland jfeics and Foveaux Straits

Herald is a journal of high merit, and the Editor, perched in his observatory, surveys with one eye the battle-fields of the American Union, and rests the other on the grass which grows so plentifully around his sanctum. In his columns may be found the latest news from all parts of the earth, but at the same time he does not neglect to tell how many gooseberries Mr. Smith will grow in his garden this year. In short, in his own estimation, he is a wonderful man, and we endorse that opinion ; our surprise, however, arising from the fact of his existence having been so long protracted, when, to use his own words, the Southland News is at the present time in a "state of ming'ed anxiety, expectancy, and doubt, so that we h.irdly dare to hazard an opinion as to what a day may bring forth in our own private business.'' Out sincere thanks are due to the writer of the above piece of confidential intelligence, and they are freely rendered, but there are a few points upon which we cannot agree. In his recent numbers, our contemporary calls in question our facts and grammar — the former (he says) we stole from his columns, the latter sets Lindley Murray at defiance. Facts and grammar, save the mark ! we will furnish him with one more /act, and guarantee its correctness, his own columns furnishing the proof: it is simply that, withoutentering on thequestion of grammar, his spelling is decidedly bad. Need we remind our brotherquill thathisjgame is to supply the public with authentic information, and consequently when he calls our facts in question, he should at the same time furnish his readers with an amended statement. We quote the following which appeared as a "local in the Southland Aews, and trust that its republication will afford not only some amount of merriment, but, taken in connection with the appended explanation, will be of service to the public ; — The special gold-fields reporter of our Kel yin-street contemporary, when preparing the account of his recent visit to our gold-fields for the " Extraordinary " of yesterday, modestly remarked in the commeiicement, " I will not in this place trouble your readers witli an aceonnt of tlie road to the recently discovered diggings on the Arrow and Shotover Rivers," &c. It is well he did not make the attempt, or the result might have bei_n productive of serious injury to a confiding array of Victorian miners. The writer seems, in the course of his devious wandeiings, to have stumbled upon "Switzer's Rush," and "thinks" the best route (vide said " Exthaordinauy") would be "the Nol'th

Road from Invercargill, as far as M'Kellar's Plain*, thence to Baggot's, M'lntosh's, M'Gibbon's and Sydney Bill's, to Tibbit's ?tation,&c. The road is good all the way." H-m-m I is it ? — According to this new style of Itinerary, the best route to the Wakatip is from Invercargill round by Dunedin and the Dunstan, with a passing glance at the Lindis. — Verb, sap.

We justly blame the Southland News for doing away with our road in toto, without at the same time furnishing a report of its own. There is, we confess, an error in the " Extraordinary " from which the above paragraph is, we can hardly say quoted, but mis-quoted. M'lntosh's should have been M'Donald's, and with thac exception the route we have named is the best that can be taken to " Switzer's Rush." If our friend likes, on his way to these diggings, to go round, as he himself suggests, by way of the Dunstan and Dunedin, we recommend him to use the Wakatip Lake as a fitting place to end all his earthly troubles. In conclusion, when we [The Times] apply to thtf Southland News for either facts or grammar, a sightless quadruped of the asinine species, which picks up a good living in Dee-street, will, in company with the writer of the " local quoted above, weep tears of congratulation. For the future we must decline advertising the existence of the Southland News and Foveanx Si raits Herald.