"Daniel figured in our pages yesterday, and to.day Lord Liston—we
beg pardon, Lord alorpeth—makes his bow to our readers. Daniel, for reasons which it would not be difficult to explain, were it worth while, selected on obscure Sunday print as the organ of communicating his last epistle to the public. Lord Morpeth has followed his master's example, so far as regards the manner at least of his performance. • * • Let it have happened by acci- dent or by design, still it is quite true, that master and man have, in this case, done all they could to hide their light under a bushel. Ilad it not been for the assistance of other papers, Daniel's epistle would have remained till doomsday abut up in the deep obscurity Mat envelops the print to which he addressed it; and the inhabitants of Leeds would, in common with the rest of the world, have remained equally ignorant for as long a period of the fact that Lord Morpeth had a dinner in that town on Wednesday last, if it had not happened that Mr. Haines could command a Mercury which, however heavy•beeled and heavy- headed, has managed to become the means of conveying the information more speedily. Thus we have arrived at a knowledge of the occurrence of this dinner at Leeds to the 'Liberal Members for the West Riding of Yorkshire.' Now, this said West Riding of Yorkshire happens to conta;n a population of 976,415 persons, of which number the town of Leeds alone contains 123,390. And how mauy persons does the reader suppose were at this grand dinner to the Liberal Members for the Riding ? Precisely one hundred and twenty three ! Why, there are more readers of the Sunday print to which Daniel sent his letter, obscure as that journal is !"— Times, Tuesday, Sept. 6.
So, the galled jade winces ! We have disovered the sore place of the 7'inics; and, " obscure " as was the corner of our journal whence we directed the shaft, the "rhinoceros hide "is penetrated. And now the Thunderer seeks to revenge himself by hurling upon us the overwhelming bolt of " obscurity !" How awful !
But, seriously, is it our " obscurity " that has given such offence ? Rather, is it not a consciousness of something pretty much the reverse ? Is there no envy at work, when the journals of every part of time country, and not a few of those of other lands, are seen to teem with matter of all kinds borrowed from time: pages of the Spectator, and with less than was wont to be from the broad sheet of the Times? And, in spite of " obscurity,' it appears that the Times itself cannot live over the Sunday without at least a stolen peep, at what it would, no doubt, blush very red to be caught perusing. It has never been our habit to brag of vast circulation, or pretend to be a "Leading-Journal." To ad- dress the thinking, and therefore more limited classes of the community, and frequently to attack even their prejudices, is not the way to obtain the most extensive sale. Nevertheless, the last Stamp Returns showed that the Spectator is at the head, in point of circulation, of the papers of its class—those sold at a shilling—and, moreover, that it is gaining. ground ; while the Times, whose constant aim has been to sail with the stream, and to profit by prejudice, regardless of truth and outraging decency, is rapidly tumbling down to the third or fourth rank of the papers of its class. Just now the Times should avoid all reference to the limited circulation of other journals. As to O'Connell's letter, by being inserted in the Spectator it has already attained perhaps twenty times the circulation which the Times, without the aid of "other papers," could have given it. As we began, so let us end with some choice words of the Times; the flashes of whose splendour will illumine the " deep obscurity" of our paragraph- " nn unredeemed and unredeemable scoundrel is this O'Connell, to make such a threat, and at such a time too ! If he has not lied more foully than it could have entered into the imagination of the Devil himself to lie, he makes the threat with his own wife dying under his very eyes ! Oh ! how long shall such a wretch as this be tolerated among civilized men ! But let him mark us well—as surely as be dares to invade the privacy of the life of Lord Lyndhurst, or of any other man, woman, or child, that may happen, by themselves or their relatives, to be opposed to him in politics, so surely will we carry the war into his domiciles at Derrvnaue and Dublin, and show up the whole brood of O'Connell,, young and -old."
When it is borne in mind that the whole fabric of abuse and libel was based on a jiwyed assumption, surely it will be conceded to us that we were abundantly charitable in surmising that " the writer of this bestia- lity could riot have been sober."
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