Last week, the Times and the Standard charged Mr. O'CONNELL--
"Mr. Daniel O'CoNNELL," as the Times and old BURDETT, with witty particularity, love to identify the Irish Potentate—with an attempt to cheat RAPHAEL out of 10001., on the faith of a note published in the RAPHAEL correspondence, and dated the 18th of June, in which O'CONNELL was made to say—" I enclose you the ballot of this morning : nothing can be better." This, said O'CONNELL's slanderers, referred to the ballot on the Carlow election,—though that ballot did not take place till the 28th of July. We pointed out this rather important cir- cumstance to the aggressors ; and reproached them with their want of common honesty in founding such a charge on evidence which bad manifestly no relation whatever to the point in question. Our exposure passed unnoticed by the Times, RAPHAEL, and Co., till Wed- nesday evening ; when the Standard opened a leading article on the subject in the following imposing style- " The coarse injustice of the following attack, in which we have the honour to be associated with the Times, might well excuse our paying any attention to it, as contempt has, probably, restrained our morning fellow labourer to silence. We, however, have early adopted, and uniformly pursued, a rule never to allow any imputation of dishonesty, or unfair dealing, to pass unanswered ; and, much as we may be disposed to regret the advances which the press is making in O'Connellism, and willing as we may be to resent in silence, as the Times resents, this coarse attack, for silence under its attacks is the severest punishment to an aspiring journal, we cannot deviate from our rule."
The Spectator expose was copied; and then the Standard proceeded to account for the "obvious error of date:" On turning to his files, our censor found that there was no ballot on the 18th of June ; two, which were fixed for that day, having gone off. Therefore it was "quite clear that the date of the 18th of June must be erroneous." Having satisfied himself on this head, the Standard, with much parade, suggested what was, "doubtless, a bold emendation,"—namely, to alter the date from the 18th of June to the 28th of July! Mind—the note -appeared among others written about the middle of June, in what was intended to pass for an elaborately connected statement. It was not in- serted among the July correspondence. The proceedings of the 28th of July are carefully recorded ; but this note was placed among the documents which referred to the progress of the election for Carlow, about the middle of June. With these facts in view, " doubtless " the Standard's "emendation" was bold—very bold. But the Standard had a reason for its suggestion. There was a great mystery about the ballot of the 28th of July. It was inexplicable how a Committee so adverse to RAPHAEL and VIGORS could have been chosen, had the "Tail" attended. O'CONNELL, surmises the Stan- • dard, wished the Committee to be hostile to his friends- " It was not his policy in the Carlow, as in his own case, to carry on the in- vestigation for months and years ; as he might have done had he obtained a Committee like that sitting on the Dublin election. No—in the Carlow case he had received his cos-sin. re.-ATioN, 20001.; • and every day's sitting of the Committee would probably be a reduction of that sum from 100/. to 150/. 'The event showed how anxious he was to close the contest at the first available
Opportunity."
This was truly a very logical argument—the Standard is proud of its loose. The point to make out was, that for the 18th of June the 28th ef July should be substituted. To prove this, the Standard asserts that there is a mystery about the ballot. O'CONNELL wished to secure a Committee of Tories, in order to avoid the expenditure of RAPHAEL'S second 100t1/. : he was anxious to "close the contest at the first avail- able opportunity," in order to keep as much as he could of RAPHAEL'S money in his own pocket. But, unluckily for this ingenious and Charitable hypothesis, O'CONNELL tells RAPHAEL, in reference to the ballot, that " nothing can be better." How does this coincide with the suggestion that he wished to discourage all opposition to the petition by getting a very adverse Committee? Here the Standard left the question—fully satisfied with its " bold emendation ;" yet still desirous that Mr. IlaeitaEL should "explain his reasons [reasons for what ?] as freely in public, as, it is understood, he explains them to his friends." RAPHAEL would not take the hint ; the Times was as contemptuous as ever ; but the Globe on Thursday, in a few pithy sentences, put the matter so pointedly and clearly against the RAPHAEL clique, that the mystery-making Standard felt itself obliged to return to the charge last night. It assumed to have proved that the note of the 18th of June was either " mistukingly dated, or a forgery ; " laid great stress on O'CoNNELL's not having " dared to deny the note ; " and pfofessed itself satisfied that there was nothing extravagant in the " bold emen- dation."
Alas, for the logic, the sagacity, the acumen, of the Standard ! The note was not " mistakingly dated ;" it was not a forgery; it had no reference to the ballot for the Carlow election ! This morning, after allowing the Times to remain in sulky silence or ignorance for a whole week,—after seeing, perhaps enjoying, the floundering of the luckless Standard,—" RAPHAEL "the black-bulled" writes the following note to the Times.
"Great Stanhope Street. 4th December 1535.
" Sir—In reference to the correspondence published in vonr paper on the 31st of October, in the letter dated the lath or June. Irma Mr. O'Connell to me, the word
" ballot" is printed iusteatl of" bulletin." " I am, Sir, your obedient. humble servant,
" ALEXANDER RAPHAEL.'
To which the Times laconically subjoins this- aa; tin referring to the MS., NC find that the mistake is our printer's, and not Mr. It aphael's."
In future, the public will know how to appreciate the conjectural " emendations " of the Standard.
But even had the note been wrongly dated, or misplaced, the Times and the Standard would not have been out of the scrape. They founded a charge of swindling on a note dated June 18th—not at that time sug- gesting or pretending that it should have been dated "July the 28th." They accused O'CONNELL of a transportable offence, on evidence, therefore, which did not in the most remote degree support the charge. It was this manifest unfairness that justified our suspicion that other parts of the correspondence might have been falsified. We never, as the Standard says, imputed to RAPHAEL forgery of the note : on the contrary, all our remarks were made on the presumption that the not* was correctly given as written by O'CONNELL. One word as to the " coarseness" of our attack, and the Standard's boast that it never allows any imputation of unfair dealing to pass un- answered, even though such imputation may be made by "an aspiring journal" to which silence ib the "severest punishment.' It is not long since the Standard charged the Spectator with the dishonest suppres- sion of the date to FAIIIMAN'S letter, in April 1830, about the suc- cession to the Throne. We repelled the accusation, by showing that the date bad been twice stated in the paper which our accuser com- mented on. Yet the Standard never apologized for or withdrew its ut- terly unfounded insinuation of dishonest suppression : it maintained a prudent silence, as the Times has done in this affair of the note. In justice to the Times, we must say that we believe it is thoroughly ashamed and mortified at the blunder which its eagerness to assail O'CONNELL with any weapon has led it to commit. In COD1111011 decency, however, it ought humbly to apologize to O'CONNELL, and to its own readers.
With respect to the" O'Connellism "—by which the Standard, we presume, means the blacliguardism—of newspapers, we shall only say at present, that when we have more room at our disposal, we may per- haps prove, by elegant extracts, that neither the Spectator nor any other journal which seeks to obtain justice for O'CONNELL, nor even O'Cosr. NELL himself, has been guilty of any thing approaching to the coarse- ness, virulence, and indecorum of language, with which the Tory assail- ants of O'CONNELL are fairly chargeable.
[ Since the above was printed in our first edition, we have read the Standard of this evening. Our contemporary devotes the Jew to the infernal gods ! He acknowledges "having done Mr. O'Connell an unconscious wrong ;" but exclaims against RAPHAEL-.." What ! allow a man to be a fortnight the subject of reproach through a mistake, that he, Mr. Raphael, was bound to correct, and that man, too, one with whom he was engaged in open hostility !"— RAPHAEL has got his deserts; he is spurned by all; even the Times must curse the hour when it took him up.]
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