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Wellington Independent, Volume XXVII, Issue 3125, 16 February 1871, Page 2

We seldom have met with an article of more thorough-paced blackguaidism than that headed " Pfist and Present," which disgraced the " Evening Post " of the night before last. That article concludes thus : — " '1 his is the triumph of Ihe new system which was to create a sort of millenium in New Zealand. The effects of the re\erses inflicted upon Maoris by th 3 late Ministry all passed away, and the disaffected portions of the race more insolent than ever; the Waikatos in open revolt; murder committed, and the Government unable to punish the murderers, or even to make an effort in that direction ; the new force manifestly unable to preserve order, and its chief an inmate of a lunatic asylum ; but what matters all this while the post at Runanga boasts of a "Literary Institute," with the veiy shingles arranged in ornamental patterns, and the walls adorned with oil paintings ? ' The country is safe yet ! ' " We are ashamed to think that a newspaper can have circulation in this city which would admit such writing into its columns. Its purport is to deride the efforts made to improve the education of the Armed Constabulary, and to hold up to ridicule, and onalce political capital out of the ■mental affliction under which the Commissioner of that force is now suffering. Such, in effect, is the language to which we refer, and which ihe" Evening Post " thinks it befitting itself to hold in the town where, and at a time when, Mr Branigan's family are plunged into the deepest distress, and every right-minded person, with any spark of manly feeling in his breast, desires to extend to them sympathy and consolation. Of course a force which contains " several men of education and ability" and which " devote their spare time to the construction of a building which might serve the purpose both of a read-ing-room and a concert-hall," is gall and wormwood to our contemporary, whose soul and intellect nro only capable of admiring a force, which, as of old, contained men of ignorance and disrepute, and who " devoted their spare time " to drunkenness and insubordination. We do not quarrel with him,' or others of his calibre, for preferring the latter qualities in nn armed force, or for pointing out " what a very different indi-

vidual the present demilitarized constable is from his military predecessor." Men do not gather grapes from thorns nor 6gs from thistles, and we are not sanguine enough to expect from our contemporary any apprehension that sett-improvement and education are essential to discipline and efficiency, whether in the camp or the field. He prefers to rely on the dissolute and the ignorant, and he is welcome to his preference. But we did not expect an outrage on social decency, and a violation of that charity which should teach him to sympathise with and not sneer at, his neighbours when illness and domestic affliction are visited upon them by the mysterious dispensation of Providence. In the name of common humanity we protest against such conduct.