THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 15, 12 April 1900, Page 6

THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER.

MORE PRESS OPINIONS,

In previous issues of the N.Z. Tablet we pave ettraots from various newspapers in this Colony highly condemnatory of the notorious Slattery pair, who are engaged at present in their campaign of slander in Dunedin. The Ashburton Mail concludes its remarks on the Slatterys thus : — But lest there should be a lurking idea in the minds of any of our readers that as we did not refer to the Slattery case in any way we had no opinion concerning these proceedings, we think it as well to state here that we sincerely trust the persons alluded to will take the very brrad hints given by the Press elsewhere, and curtail their New Zealand tour. The Dunedin correspondent of the Tuopeha Ti mtx, referring to Slattery's comment on the way in which the morning and evening papers in Dunedin ignored him both in the liter. iry and advertising departments, says: ' Decent papers are not quite so hard pushei financially that they cannot afford to reject the money of a imn whose only object is to stir up religious strife — / '„ the worst kind of strife, and to give pain to numbers of good living men and women. ... By the way, I heard of Mr. Slattery in America. I happened to be in the same town as tha t in whii hhe wn lecturing 1 , and as for this gentleman's opinionso ns upon any paper here being dictated to in respect to his lectures from out-»id«, I happen to know that he is mistaken. His audiences were mainly members of Orange societies, and his mission has been tabooed purely on the grounds I have stated.' Later on the same correspondent writes anent the deputation of Slattery's sympathisers to the editors of the Times and Star, and their grandiloquent talk about freedom of the Press.' ' His (Slattery's) audiences are mainly made up of men who decorate themselves with yellow ribbons upon the anniversary of that day when the cold-blooded and not over-chaste Dutchman drove that rascal James 11., of pious memory, in a hurry across the Boyne, and these same lovers of yellow are apt to get anerry and talk grandiloquently about '" Freedom of Speech " — i.e. license to slander the belief of your neighbor without hindrance — it they can't get everything their own way.' * The unkindest cut of all was in the tail end of the Dunedin letter of the Mount I/Ia Chronicle, The writer says :—' But they (the Slatterys) have taken no steps in the direction of instituting an action for libel against the Rev. Father Cleary, of the Tablet, who brought out pamphlets concerning them which, if the statements they contain are not true, are the most libellous publications that have ever been issued about any man and woman in the Colony.'

Generosity comprises the desire and the inclination to help Others without reference to self. Editing a periodical is much the same as raking a fire — everyone thinks he can perform the operation better than the man who has the poker.