A SMALL-BEER POET.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 181, 28 February 1868, Page 3

A SMALL-BEER POET.

We clip the following from the West Coast Times of Tuesday :

To the Mdifor of the West Coast Times. Sir, —An effusion of a pothouse character, published, in the Westport Evening Star of the 21st inst—in which I am represented as having " got up" a telegram referring to the Queensland goldfields for selfish purposes, has been industriously circulated throughout the town to-day. Without condescending to argue with a scribbler whose ambition evidently is to be thought funny, I may state for the enlightenment of those who take their beer and their ideas from the same source, viz., the pot-house concert room—that the news published in the telegram referred to has been most substantially confirmed. In fact the said telegram rather under than overstated the true state of affairs. A nugget of eighty-Jive pounds weight has, beyond all doubt, been found on the Mary River diggings, and a considerable rush has set in towards that district —partly in consequence of that nugget, but chiefly owing to the general tenor of the news from there.

Surprised as I am that a concoction from a small-beer poet should appear in a publication dignified under the name of newspaper, still more surprised am I that certain individuals in this town should so lack common sense and discretion, as to forward the said concoction to the press of this town, with a view to their republishing what is only fit to emanate from such publishers as Catuatch of the Seven Dials. Custom in the colonies has extended to a certain-class of rhymemongers the privilege of ridiculing, and in some instances, libelling private individuals ; but it is a still further innovation on the rules of propriety, for a newspaper to print in its columns that whicn is fit only to be sung by some " unfortunate man" in a beer house, when the auditors are half stupified by alcoholic imbibitions, and the " unfortunate" has the excuse that it is his only available mode of obtaining a livelihood. I am, &c, John White.