THE PHILOSOPHY OF FILCHING.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVII, Issue 1768, 18 September 1862, Page 2

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FILCHING.

Ix is recorded in a very unfashionable book, of one who has left his mark in the pages of sacred history " that he said in his haste that all men were liars," and verily had the inspired psalmist, lived in the present age, he would have found' in the ranks of journalism, as represented- by" . our contemporary the Advertiser, a telling - though isolated, instance of the partial truth of his somewhat sweeping assertion.

These remarks have been suggested to our mind by observing that the journal in question, in its last issue, has the following paragraph :

Capt. Hall's Narrative.— This, as published by the Independent on Saturday, was copied from our " Extra" of the preceding day, and it is not true that Captain Hall gave them any authority to take it without acknowlegment. It was also very imperfect, published by us in our summray with that repriuted by our contemporary.

The facts of the case are simply these. On the arrival of the Rangitira, last Thursday, Captain Hall very courteously sent a message to our office first, and afterwards to that of the Advertiser, offering to place his notes about the wreck at the disposal of the Press, but having a large quantity of other important matter in type at the time, including all the details of the disaster which could be gleaned from other source. 0 we were reluctantly obliged to defer the publication of Captain Hall's account till next issue* Meantime our c >ntenaporary published an "extra" on the Friday, containing the narra-. live, which it pretended had been addressed in a letter to the editor, and thus by means of a discreditable perversion of truth, an exclusive right of property io the article was attempted _ to be established. As a matter of course this journal published a similar account on Saturday for doing which the Advertiser has called' us in question. The petty malice of the above paragraph is in perfect keeping with its utte r mendacity.

It has always be»n our object in pissing through the world to act as if walking in "a muddy street, where it is b.est to avoid, as much as possible, the coutact of dirt and mire, and on that principle we have often refrained from calling our contemporary to account. It may be well, however, just for once to risk a temporary contamination, and see how far the Advertiser is itself immaculate in the very point on which it isso prone to judge rigorously of others. Turning over then the last three or four issues we are rather startled to find that the paper of the 9th, has a column and a half of extracts from the speech of the Native Minister on the Natire Lands Bill, taken without the slightest acknowledgement, from the very full report published in this journal of the 6lh. Those extracts supplemented by about 20 or 30 lines of original mat* ter, are served up in the form of an article in the editoral columus, which, we presume, is intended for a " leader." If that be the case, and such miserable hashes will pass current as leading articles, then all the tact, talent, reading, and good taste, which have hitherto been supposed to be essential requisites in the political writer, will now be found utterly useless, and their places supplied by the scissors and the paste pot.

" Steal ! a fico for the word, the wise, convey^ it call," would certainly be a more appropri* ate motto for our .cotemporary, than its present one ; and a telling instance of this- principle reduced to practice, is to be found in the issue of last Thursday, where Mr. Jollie'a speech,exceeding three and a half columns in length is. copied verbatim et literatim, fruin the Independent, of five days before. The " conveyance," is of course, never alluded to; but not even content with niching our report, it has actually the unparalled audacity to borrow the ideas, and almost the very words themselves of one of our leading articles, wbich appeared in our paper of the 9th. Itiscertainl) somewhat hard that we should find both matter and comments for our cotemporary, and then meet with such base ingratitude iv return.

The unscrupulous aud wholesale system of filching from this jourual adopted by the Advertiser, is equalled if not surpassed by ihe recklessness and lack of discrimination shown in filling other portions of its. columns" The Native Lauds Bill was published there about tin rfuys ago, and albeit since then the most important changes have been made in the measure by the Legislative Council and the Governor, yefit is still inserted in the original shape, and day by day-it is allowed to mislead the public, simply because ie saves the trouble of selecting or producing fresh matter.

We bad almost finished the list of present delinquencies, but the very last paper, furnishes such an apposite instance of the same thing that we cannot resist the temptation of clUliug attention to it. la tbat paper nearly three columns are filled with a letter from " Blue Nose," which is attempted to be palmed off on the public as making its first appearance in print, when in point of fact the very same letter

is copied word for word from the New Zcalander of April 13th. Truly our cotemporary must be sorely pushed for matter.

It is a thankless and repulsive task to track him through all the m-izes and windings of his tortuous and crooked course, but we trust he may be warned in time and forsake the evil of his ways, or else take the inevitable consequences. Twice before within a very lecent period has he incurred our merited censure, and twice has he stood in the pillory of public opinion, exposed to general scorn and contempt as a cihnnniator and a braggart. In both those instances conscious of guilt, he has hung his head and uttered not a word in defence, but sneaked off the field like a lashed hound, amidst the jibes and jeers of the gratified spectators. We trust the painful and degrading experience he has already undergone, will teach him wisdom ; but if it has not tt at effect, then we warn him that there are other '" Secrets of ihe prison-house" which had better not be disclosed, and that in the interest of the community, we will lose no futureopp.»rtunity, of laying bare in all its hideous deformity, the unshrinkingdissinmlation.the who'e>aleplagiirism, and the miserable imbecility, which are the leading characteristics of the journal to which we allude.