In 1902 Edward Mulcahy, Minister of Lands in the Tasmanian government, sued James Paton, proprietor and editor, and Gerald Tempest Massey, printer and publisher of Hobart's "pungent"[1] Clipper newspaper, for defamation of character, in respect of an article alleging impropriety in awarding a contract for the Strahan storm water channel.
[2] Massey disposed of The Clipper to Walter Alan Woods, and founded The Critic.
In 1904 he was joined briefly by Paton, who then moved to Perth, to become first editor of the left-wing Democrat,[7] which lost money from the outset, and Paton (who advocated increased borrowing and pressing on) was sacked.
[9] He later decamped for South Africa with a female staffer from Democrat days, leaving his wife[10] Martha Ann "Mattie" Deane, née Davis,[11] to organise a divorce.
The paper was published and printed by The National Library of Australia has digitized microfilm copies of The Critic from Volume 2, issue 75 of 5 January 1907 to Volume 69, issue=989, of 19 September 1924, accessible online via Trove.