The daily gazette., 1883-01-09
Revistrar Frassr1s Report.

Having printed, on Saturday morning
last, a glaring and ridiculous blunder in it's
pretended report of vital statistics for the
week, and therefore strongly suggested to
Registrar Frazer the propriety of refusing
to allow the weekly summary to be printed
until the week is ended, the Morning Neaos,
with its usual unblushing effrontery, now
tries to create the impression that the Regis
trar is endeavoring to make private property
of his public records for personal ends.
The facts Of the case are these f: For the
purpose of convenience and regularity the
Registrar ends his weekly record at noon on
Saturday, and recently the afternoon papers
(or ut least two of them) have made copies
of the report and published them In
their late editions of that day, while a
fuller report, including list In
detail of marriages and deaths appears in
the Sunday Star. A few weeks ago the
Ncps, which in the regular course of events
could not publish the weekly report until
Monday morning, commenced the publica-
tioD of a partial report in its Saturdays
Issue, which, of course, only included the
returns received by the Registrar up to the
Friday night before.
Any intelligent reader can readily imagine
the awkward and unsatisfactory charact, r
of this kind of report. 1t was not a
record Of the week, as 1t did not cover the
weeks transactions Of the Registrars Office,
and was simply done from ridiculous de-
sire to "get ahead" of the afternoon papers
in this publication. Had the latter desired
to emulate their greedy morning contempo-
rary in this contemplate proceeding, they
could easily have done so by printing an in
complete report on Friday afternoon, but
they preferred the more decent and salts
factory method of waiting until the report
was complete before publishing it at all.
While the course of the Negs In thus
palming off upon the public an incomplete
and unfruthful report of his records was
not entirely satisfactory to Registrar
Frazer, he made no objection until the fire.
quent occurrence Of stupid blunders culmi-
mated on Saturday in misprint SO glarlng
and Inaccurate that his patience was ex-
hausted and he determined upon the
sensible conclusion to allow no
copies to be made of his records
until he had summarized and prepared his
report fol the full week. In this determi-
nation he will be sustained by all sensible
people, and even if he had not such good
grounds for his action, the false and mali
cious insinuation of the NeicS that it had
been guilty of no blunder and that the
charge was due TO mistaken impression
on the part OF the Registrar is suffl-
cient to warrant him in refusing
all access to his records to any representa-
tive Of that laundering and falsifying sheet.
This habit OF the News of deliberately evad :
ing the truth when caught in an omission
or cornered in an argument Is becoming
notorious, and while it long ago destroyed
what little character Tor yeracity the paper
might have once possessed, also renders it
impossible for any reputable journal to
engage it in an honest controversy in regard
10 either principles or facts.
No one can accuse Registrar Frazer of a
desire to withhold from the public any
matters of interest connected with the
Health Department of the city. On the
contrary he has been anxious to impart all
information in his possession, and since he
has been Secretary of the Board Of Health
we venture to assert that he has made the
people more fully acquainted with the con-
Germs of his office than all the other depart
ment officials combined for years
In conclusion we simply desire to state
that the Nens' understanding" that Reg S.
trar Frazer prepares the copy of his report
for this paper is, like most of its conlusions
and assertions, entirely unfounaed, as this
work Is invariably done by one of our repre-
sentatiyes. As to the matter of payment
for the publication of the official report, a
perusal of the Law in respect to the Regis.
trar's duties will dispel our Inaccurate con.
temporary's ignorance upon this point.