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The anecdote which Mr. Lennox considers insulting is also very harmless. Moreover, we have good reasons for believing it to be (in the main) true. The person who contributed the paragraph assured me his father was a witness of the scene, and asserted that the lady was a Mrs. Franklin, well-known in town, if Mr. Lennox will search his memory we have not the least doubt that he will remember some such occurrence. The anecdote may have grown (as anecdotes have a way of doing) in the telling-, but we can't think it was deliberately invented. And now for a word or two about the tone of the complainant's letter. Mr. Lennox writes as if he were a friend of ours, and we had most unkindly trampled on him. Unfortunately that, to use a vulgar phrase, "won't wash." From the very first Mr. Lennox has been an uncompromising opponent of the OnSEIiVER. He has said scores of nasty things about the paper 4 (N.8. —We hear more than many folk's think), besides using what little influence lie has against us, and if he could ruin our business with a word he would rejoice to be able to speak that word. This being so, we think Mr. Lennox looks for rather too much when he expects us to treat him with "consideration" and "respect." If a friend, or a good advertiser, or, in fact, anyone who has a claim upon us cmncs and says, " Would you kindly keep my name out of the paper ;" or, "If such-and-such a joke about me comes to your ears will you omit it," we generally (without absolutely pledging ourselves) try to be obliging. But when a man consistently tries to injure us, and we get the laugh on our side, we are naturally not so pusillanimous to miss the opportunity. "You scratch me and I'll scratch you," says the proverb, and a very good one it is.

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TO18810514.2.13

Bibliographic details

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 35, 14 May 1881, Page 373

Word Count
322

Untitled Observer, Volume 2, Issue 35, 14 May 1881, Page 373

Untitled Observer, Volume 2, Issue 35, 14 May 1881, Page 373