Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1879-03-01 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

ANOTHER "LYING SPIRIT"  ABROAD.  Ora contemporary, the Northern Echo, has die covered another "lying spirit" abroad. Fortunately for the devoted heads of the members of Her Majesty's Ministry, it is not this time in the chambers of Whitehall, but in the columns of its "humble conteraPoraries " the " evening papers," that the lies ham been disseminated which have called down the ire of our virtuous friend. Some of our MANS may remember the gushing article on Monday in which our contemporary deprecated the interest and exeitement which was being taken by the public in the convict Peace; and although the thought would have occurred to many that it was rather inconsistent—after having published daily for weeks past all the gossip, authentic and unauthentic, on which it could lay hands on the career of this notorious criminal—it was possibly a relief to think that at least one journal had repented and washed I its hands of the dirty subject for ever. In I spite of all this virtue, will it be believed that the Echo actually published a special edition on Tuesday afternoon with an account of the execution? We saw nothing of such an edition on Tuesday at Stockton, and but for the kindness of our Darlington agent might have remained in ignorance of the fact. A fact it is neverthless, as the copy before us testifies : "Special Edition.—Northern Echo Office, Tuesday, 11 a.m. Dying speech and full confession by the convict." Let us do the Echo the justice to say that it was evidently entirely an after-thought and in a moment of weakness that the" special" was issued. No announcement of the issue was made in the Tuesday morning publication, and only an overweaning desire to be" in at the death" and forestall the hated " evening papers" cpuld have overcome the conscientious scruple To judge by results,no sooner was the special edition issued than it was repented of, for we learn that no copies were sent to the Hartlepools, Stockton, or Middlesbrough ;—or possibly it was deemed best to make a virtue of a necessity, seeing that the Saki was already occupied by the Daily Gazette. There may be another cause for the apparent short-coming, seeing that the heading above quoted occupies exactly half the space devoted to this savoury subject, and the " fall confession and dying speech" exactly 10 lines. Indeed: the confession and speech in question is reported in 16 words as follows :  Be addressed the reporters at len4sh, and then died fearlessly. lie has left a full confession."  The first part of this fearful and wonderful gpecial edition is, however, the most amus nig. It commences as follows :  "The lying reports of the evening papers that Peace had committed suicide have been terribly refuted this morning."  What evening papers? We have looked carefully at all the evening papers of Monday, and can find no such report. We venture to sity that no such report was published by any evening paper, either local or otherwise, and that consequently the statement is a pure fabrication of the excited and confused brain of the editor. Seeing that this paper threw the Irish population of the neighbourhood into a state of excitement on Tuesday morning by announcing a mere rumour of the death of Mr Butt, M.P.—which we are glad to say was unfounded—it at least might pause to take the beam out of its own eye before Plucking the mote out of its brothers' in such an elephantine fashion. We observe that the weekly " echo" of our Darlington contemporary has been instructed to say that the machine by which the Daily Gazette 18 Printed only works at the rate of 2,000 Per hour. It may be of interest to some readers to know that the " Wharfdsie" used Was guaranteed to produce above 3,600, and that with racent alterations and improvements it can be worked safely at the rate of 5,000 per hour, and has actually produced consecutivelyno less than 5,500 per hour. We Observe that the Gazette states that over 16,000 copies were sold on Tuesday evening; perhaps this, and the fact that its circulation has been rapidly extending, may not be altogether agreeable at Darlington. Manifestly the 'Shoe pinches" somewhere!