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Observer, Volume 2, Issue 37, 28 May 1881, Page 396

Sudden deaths are always startling, but poor Sutherland's on Saturday morning gave us a peculiar shock. We had not, it is needless to say, the faintest notion that he was ill, otherwise the two pars in last issue would lm T e been held over till a more h'tting lime. Certain scandalmongers with more malice than brains are saying "the Observer killed the man," thereby ignoring facts and presuming the deceased to be an arrant fool, which he certainly Avas not. We are told lio man in town understood chati better than Sutherland, and to assert that lie took to his bed and died merely because we jibed at him about a cheque -which he wouldn't cash, is to suppose him a soft-headed idiot. As a matter of fact, however, he never read the -paragraphs or even heard of them so that all stories on the point are malevolent falsehoods.