Thus we could not strictly say that we had no local newspaper. But
now, I fear, the case is altered, and _The Binnacle_ has been killed
solely by its own popularity.
It doesn't do for an editor to be too popular. People used to drop in
on Casey at all hours of the day and lend a hand and smoke his tobacco
and try to borrow money. His sanctum became the fashionable lounge
of the Ballybun _elite_. A great gap was caused in the front of the
paper amongst the best paying advertisements by Kelly's trying to
clean his pipe with part of the linotype machine. Casey noticed
this, and further attributed the matter to the Censor, whom he
attacked vigorously in a leading article for trying to throttle the
safety-valve of trade by inoculating the thin end of the wedge; he
will do this again, he added, at his own peril. He also told Kelly the
same.
As our respected Member of Parliament is hanging tenaciously on to
life, and we could not very well invite him to create a vacancy, we
were at a loss how to mark our esteem for our popular editor in a
practical manner. Casey himself suggested a testimonial. His friends,
however, said that nothing sordid should ever enter into the feelings
with which they regarded him, and decided finally on electing him to
the second highest office a layman in our part can hope to hold. He
was elected Judge--"unanimously," as he put it, "by 29 to 3"--and the
race meeting came off last week.
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