Untitled

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 195, 13 September 1888, Page 2

It is a characteristic feature of some prints to make inuendoes on matters to which they have not the courage to more fully refer. A week or two ago our contemporary made a statement to the effect that, whilst in Gisborne, Mr Bell, President of the Wellington Law Society, would make enquiry into the conduct of a certain solicitor—of course it would never do for our contemporary to state who that solicitor was ; it would not be the customary principle at all. We took the trouble to enquire into the matter, and find that so far as Mr Bell is concerned, that gentleman felt the reference to himself as the outcome of bad taste. He did not, he said, come to Gisborne to act the part of a common detective. The solicitor alluded to, we believe, was one who had not paid the annual fee required. His not having done so was an irregularity which might have deserved comment, but it was no justification for the slur evidently intended. By the inuendo it was sought to give the irregularity an aggravated appearance, and at the same time the reflection was not calculated to do the profession any good. Why does not our contemporary speak out plainly, and if there is a wrong endeavor to get it righted, instead of mysteriously hinting that there was such an awful crime that one of the leading lights of the New Zealand Bar had found it necessary to act the part of a detective to sheet home the offence ? The fact was, as stated, that one member of the profession (whether thoughtlessly or intentionally it is not for us to judge) omitted to pay the necessary annual fee, and on the at? tention of the Society being called to the matter that body refused to trouble itself with it.