Wellington Notes.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2092, 15 July 1887, Page 2

Wellington Notes.

The Greytown “ Our own Correspondent ” of the ‘New Zealand Times ’ writes under date July 6:—

“Public opinion hers seems to be about evenly balanced between the two candidates. It is thought by many that if the laboring men of the district were only left to nee their unbiassed discretion, Mr Bnnny would be the favorite.”

This is a nice innocent candid opinion. The “ Correspondent ” must think the “ laboring men of the district” are pretty easily biassed. Does the correspondent mean that some one is going about with bags of gold aud thus influencing the electors ? Or does he mean to insinuate that electors daro not vote for who they like, or what docs ho moan •* Ho probably thinks that were the Wairarapa Standard dead and buried, and Mr Hogg allowed to tell his little tarradiddlos without contradiction, and Mr Bunny only permitted to speak aud canvass; and Mr Buchanan’s side gagged, that Mr Bunny would stand the best chance. Probably in that case he would; but, unfortunately for poor Messrs Hogg aud Bunny, electors have wits of their own; the Standard is still very much alive, aud Mr Buchanan and his supporters are not gagged. By the way, who is the “ Own Correspondent ” of the New Zealand Times P • * •

Of course it is an admitted fact that no newspaper editor can possibly malm a mistake. Such a thing is absolutely unheard of. We all know the story of the man who presented himself before an editor and complained that said editor had announced that he (the man) was dead. "Did we announce thatP” asked the editor. " You did, ” said the Complainant," and it is absurd, for here I am, alive.” “ Now look here, my friend,” replied the editor, "this thing has gone for enough; we are running tnia newspaper show not you, and if wo said you wore dead, by thunder I you are dead, and it shows a wonderful mean spirit in you to come round hero impugning the veracity of the press. Yon get back to your grave and act like a respectable corpse. Mve! indeed! ” No, newspaper editors never make mistakes; if they did I should be disposed, Mr Editor, to say you had made a slight error in your leader of 6th inst. Reviewing Mr Bunny’s land confiscation policy, you say yon believe Mr Bunny has no land at all. That’s where you are wrong, or would have been wrong if yon had not been an Editor. Mr Bunny has 3,000 acres of land, in the Carterton district, too. It is not very good laud and that perhaps reconciles him to the land confiscation scheme. The fences and buddings on Mr Bunny’s land are in a rather sick condition. They look as if they had had an unpleasantness with an earthquake and the earthquake had the best of it, and that perhaps, reconciles him to the confiscation of improvements with the land.

(If we stated that Mr Bunny had no land we must have been right. Perhaps it is mortgaged. Ed. Standaed.) . . . It is an admitted fact that New Zealand is a lawyer-ridden country, and as a natural corollary it is a police-ridden country, and none seem to be prouder of this latter fact than the conductors of some of our leading newspapers. These gentlemen are regularly “gone”on the detective branch of the “ force.” If some police-officer in plain clothes manages to nab some pretty larceuist redhauded, our papers break out into paens about that I 'color. “ The thanks of the community,” wo are told, “ are duo to Detective Nabem fox- the splendid capture,” &c., &c. Now, I fail to .see why the community should go into hysterics because a jxjliceman docs what he is paid for—his duty. I have no word to say against the New Zealand police, who—considering eir opportunities and that they have few ■ vat masters in the art? of professional crhniuality to deal with—arc doubtless as smart in their way as other police, but I certainly think this repeated newspaper fulsome laudation is bad for any body of public servants ; and I utterly fail to see that the deeds of the energetic members av the foorco should rcccivo any more kudos than those of a government clerk who properly dots his i’s and crosses his t’s.

Not' only is this ridiculous praise of detectives unjust to those other policeofficers who have loss sensational duties allotted to them, but it leads to a most demoralizing tampering with justice itself. English common law pre-snpposes every man innocent until legally proved guilty. But what happens f A man is arrested and frequently before he is talror before a magistrate, the papers contain a sensational account of the arrest, together with every other circumstance—real or imaginary—which may possibly tend to criminate the accused. Some few weeks 1 since, for instance, a man calling himimif an “ architect” and who said he had just arrived from Sydney, informed the police that ho had been set upon by robbers in a Wellington hotel and robbed of £l5O. "rhe “energetic detective” arrested a young man for the offence. Then the papers “ let go the painter.” The accused was a_“ notorious spooler,” an “ immense quantity of spurious sovereigns” had been found among the effects of the “ robber,” &c., &c., &c. Next day, the “architect” found his £l5O, and the i I papers discovered the “ spurious sovereigns ” were harmless counters. Not. withstanding this the unfortunate accused was remanded—bail being refused—from day to day. Eventually he was committed for trial and released on bail. Mark the sequel TheSydney“architeot”improved each each shining hour by getting unlimited tick—a man who could lose £l5O on a drunken spree, or say he lost it, must necessarily be highly respectable, A short time before the trial of the “ robber ” came off th,a architect called a meeting o( his creditors. The creditors assembled, and while matters were progressing the architect left the room for the purpose of saying his prayers or shed- [ ding a tear over the truthfulness of human nature, and in an absent-minded sort of manner walked aboard a steamer just getting underweigh and floated out on her to the bosom of the limitless ocean to be, in other climes, “ robbed " of another £l5O. The unfortunate accused is probably congratulating himself that ho did not get seven years* penal servitude. The local press certainly did its level beat to put him there. • * .

Another case is proceeding now in Wellington. _ There have boon several petty larcenies here lately, which the newspapers dignify by the name of “ burglaries,” which word of course looks better as a cross heading than petty larceny. Wc were told that the ener. getic officer (Detective Nabem) had the matter in hand but, nevertheless, we locked our windows of anight and put the long-handled broom whore we could recognize it in the dark. The “burglaries ” continued however, but we slept through it, known.; that that sleuth, hound Nabem was e i the war . path. One day the land! .-d s' - n hotel informed Nabem in a cursory sort of a way that he

had a lord in bis caboose who didn’t pay his bill, aud waltzed out o'nights only. Nabem cocked his revolver, ordered the male staff of the hotel to follow with warming pans and kitchen rolling pins, and crept np stairs. He took a look at the lord and then at the lord’s trank. What the detective found there induced him to arrest my lord. Now if any capture could be more simple than this, I should like to hear of it. But the local press is staggered breathless with admiration of the inspired policeman who, when he looked in a box aud found certain property there had the matchless sagacity to arrest the man who claimed the box. Not only this, but every circumstance that could tell against the accused has been strung out into delirious columns of everlasting slush. If this be justice. New Zealand injustice must be a tropical product.