Wellington Gutter Puddlers

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 179, 7 August 1888, Page 1

Wellington Gutter Puddlers

Beferhing to the recent accusations of a Wellington paper of immorality against our public - schools, the Press says : —“ We are inclined to acquit the paper of the w.orst intention of slander. We believe that its credulousness, and its notorious proneness for nasty sensationalism, were taken, advantage of by designing persons in order to strike a de.idly blow at the system of public education in New Zealand. The paper fired the blunderbuss, not knowing what it was aimed at. But it was the denominationalists, the foes of the national system of education, who loaded it to the muzzle with a carefully prepared charge. It was a foul shot if ever there was one. No more effective way of discrediting the national schools could have been hit on than to accuse them of being little better than houses of ill-fame. The utter unscrupulousness, not to say the atrocious cruelty and wickedness of thus seeking to blast at one stroke the fair name of tens of thousands of innocent girls, need not be touched upon. All experience of history shows that fanatics, whether sectarian or secularist, have no scruples. The atheists in France have adopted precisely the same means for crushing the religious system of education in that country as the denominationalists here have adopted for crushing the - secular system of education in this colony." The N. Z. Herald severely upraids the slanderers in these terms:—We have not the least doubt the whole thing is a trumped-up story of a very heartless and cruel kind ; for it is such as throws a shadow over thousanda of innocent children, who do not even know what the meaning of it is, and pains the hearts of thousands of parents, to whom the mere mention of such a thing in connection with their children brings a pang. Puddling in the gutter in this way has of course a delight for some, to whom the moral stench raised is as the fragrance of a sweet-smelling savor; and no doubt there must be in Wellington society a lowest stratum, to which such alleged revelations are an attraction and a treat, or a local newspaper would not feel justified in seeking such out-of-the way occasions for using the muck-rake.