ONE FOR THE PREMIER'S NOB

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1162, 15 July 1885, Page 3

ONE FOR THE PREMIER'S NOB

Mr Stout, says the " Evening Press,'* always had a great hankering for print; but it was not by any means reciprocated. Having pestered the regular journals at Dunedin with bad writing till they had no more room in their waste paper baskets, he set up an organ of his own, called, if we mistake not, the " Echo. " It was, in fact, wellnamed, and that is all that was well done about it. If we are asked to describe it, we should say it was afeeble echo of Mr Stout. It was not a public journal in the ordinary sense, but merely a vehicle of Mr Stout's opinions. Each issue was a nauseous hash-up of second-hand blasphemy and halfdigested socialism, with fulsome glorification of Mr Stout and his sayings and doings. There were three papers at Dunedin, very similar in their main features, namely, Mr Stout's " Echo," Mr J. G-. S. Grant's " Delphic Oracle," and another whose name we forget* conducted by an eccentric disciple of Mr Stout, popularly known as Jock Graham. Mr Stout and his " Echo" came midway between the other two. They seldom sank quite so low as Jock, but they never rose' to the fine scholarship and frequent flashes of realpow,er of Mr Grant and the "Delphic Oracle." The public Vould have none of them, and after railing bitterly for some time at the bad taste and general degeneracy of the public, as incompetent papers always do, they retired from the unequal struggle, and were no more heard of. Mr Stout, we believe, has never since risked a newspaper i venture, for he has learnt from a sad and sorry experience that journalism is not his forte. But he still dabbles in it in a heavy sort of way, whenever he can get a good-natured editor to take a doughy article off his hands.

Lovely Climes. — There are lovely climes and places in which the evening zephyrs are loaded with malaria and the poison of fever and epidemics. To dwell there in health is impossible, without a supply . of Hop Bitters at hand. These American Co.'s Bitters impart an equalizing strength to the system, and prevent the accumulation of deadly spores of contagion. Be sire and see. Small Boy : " Pa, did you know ma long before you married her." Pa : u l didn't. • I did not know her till after I married her."