The Westport Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1869.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 584, 23 November 1869, Page 2

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1869.

It is much to be regretted that, on the part of the two new Provincial Councillors for the Buller district, there should he displayed such a disposition for martyrdom. One seeks political suicide because his sensitiveness, assisted by his lively imagination, has been offended. He refuses to come to maturity iu the typical character—that of a lamb—in which he entered the fold. lie will butt his little head against a thistle or a " burr," and hurt his only yet sprouting horns by runniug a-muck of some spider's web. Poor little lamb! His delicate feelings will, perhaps, undergo a change as he grows older, as he browses on rougher pastures, and as he becomes closer and coarser in his fleece. The example of his associates in the fold, if he can only be kept within its bounds, may do him good by teaching him to be a little less jealous of evil. He may yet prove to be, as he promised, a " respectable sheep ;" but, if he will die, let him.

The other is a martyr, by selfselection, but by the persistent action of his "enemy " —a " leviathan Press." '" The Wcstport Times" says lie, "is my enemy. It never loses an opportunity of casting a hurtful insinuation against me." Talk about a " bruis'cl reed !" What is that to this " weeping willow?" Miserable martyr! Cruel "leviathan Press," to be thus the enemy of a good man, and a probably excellent Provincial Councilloi-. Why should you exist to be an enemy to Mr O'Conor? AVhy should you exist at all when you are the enemy of Mr O'Conor? And that is just the question. It is not your being an enemy, " leviathan Press " —it is your existence that constitutes " the rub.'' And if you could only be shown to be an enemy to Mr O'Couor, and if people would only be got to believe it, perchance the termination of your existence might—as it is wished to be —be " short, sharp, and decisive." But we believe that people will not believe what Mr O'Conor believes—that all that he says is believed. People are much more likely to believe that it is Mr O'Conor who is the enemy of the Press. It is much more usual to find individual enemies to the Press than to find the Press an enemy to individuals ; and we believe that the Westport Times deserves, as it enjoys, the reputation of doing nothing unusual compared with the Press generally. With the Press generally the preference is to assail such a personage as the Emperor of Russia or the President of the United States. Mr O'Conor elevates himself into a very distinguished martyr when he conceives that tho Westport Times is Ins enemy, but we shall not allow him to become a martyr so cheaply. Why should he be considered a martyr ? Because we "cast hurtful insinuations against him." Probably were we to call Mm a lamb it would be libel ; to call him a sheep would be scandal; to call him a parallellogram or a rhododendron might be the inciting cause of a revolution in his kitchen. To hint even now that he is an enemy to the Westport Times would be to do him a gross injustice—to make him a martyr by elevating him to distinction. And we aro sure that nothing has ever previously been said of him half so bad. The fact is that, in every public movement in this place the Westport Times has heen with Mr O'Conor in principle, though occasionally not in detail ; his public spirit has been the subject of our admiration; even in those "storms in tea-pots" those Committee contests of which we hear so much—he has usually been sympathised with. It is Mr O'Conor's deficiency in the refinement of humor —his chronic jaundice—which leads him to mistake a little friendly " rub " for a " hurtful insinuation." As well might the first girl our editor meets, and chucks under the chin, as he probably would do on the very next opportunity, charge him with being guilty of a " hurtful insinuation." The cases are exactly parallel. Tho difference lies in tho way people appreciate that sort of thing, and—of course judging of it purely in the abstract—we prefer the girl's way to that of Mr

O'Conor. Girls, we are told, take it kindly; Mr O'Conor, we fear, waxes fat aiid kicks. The girl's way is the way which "recommends itself unto our gentle senses," and, if we are not mistaken, to the senses of every sensible, person.