as a morning rival to the ODT but it lasted only until 20 March 1869. Following the departure of Vogel, the newspaper became an opponent of his political policies and thus once he became a member of the government it was anti-government from 1869 to 1876. One of the people sacked from the ODT in the purge of editorial staff in 1868 was George Bell who in January 1869 started the evening daily Evening Independent. In June of that same year Bell purchased the Evening Star and merged the Evening Independent into it. Telegram libel case Meanwhile, the editorship ODT was given to lawyer George Burnett Barton. Despite circulation falling from its high of 7,000 copies in 1862 and the departure of Vogel the ODT remained the province's dominant newspaper through the 1860s. Poor economic conditions in the early 1870s made things difficult for the ODT. In 1871 it saw off a threat from the short lived daily The Southern League and Daily Advertiser which began publication in early July and which despite a name change to The Daily Advertiser and Southern League it had closed by 10 November 1871. Barton was not however a success, as a number of libel actions were taken against the newspaper, most notably a celebrated case which became known as the "Telegram Libel Case". In October 1870 Barton had published articles in the alleging that the Telegraph Department delayed news telegrams for the ODT until summaries had been given to pro-government newspaper in Wellington. The government took exception to these comments. Vogel was serving in a senior position in the government and there was suspicions that as Vogel's departure from the newspaper had been somewhat acrimonious, he still harboured a significant grudge: The government managed to locate evidence that identified that Barton was author of the articles and prosecuted him for libel. In the process of gathering evidence the government offered Otago Daily Times staff a 'pardon in advance' so they wouldn't incriminate themselves in giving evidence against Barton. After he was committed for trial in January 1871, the case was dropped. Barton was not inclined to let matters rest and in March 1871, he launched a writ against Charles Lemon the head of the Telegraph Department, accusing him of a breach of the Telegraph Act (1865) over the so-called Stafford Timaru speech affair. In his writ Barton accused him of obtaining a copy