New Zealander’s Experience.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 212, 13 September 1901, Page 3

New Zealander’s Experience.

Mr IV. B. Matheson, a New Zealander at present in London, seems to have had anything but a pleasant time of it last Sunday afternoon. Writing to the Times from 22, Wormall stroct, ho gives his experiences in Regent’s Park. He says : “ I have just returned from Now Zealand, after living in a bush district for 18 years, and been shocked by an exhibition of English prejudice and cowardice such as I should have found it hard to imagine. I was sitting within a band enclosure, when, hearing a ery of ‘ pro-Boer,’ I rose to see a foreigner enter the enclosure in haste, some 50 to 80 boys aud young men following him to tho gate with shouts and threats. The man sat down, but w 7 as requested by tho custodian to go out, as he feared serious consequences from the increasing crowd. I persuaded the caretaker to let the foreigner sit quietly by me, but tho caretaker repeatedly triod to persuade me to take the foreigner out to

tho mercy of the howling crowd, which now numbered 150. At last the caretaker came to say that a sergeant and five constables would escort us safely to the Portland Road railway station, and we started. Our escort became nervous of serious trouble, and invited us to climb a fence with them. We declined, and at last we were housed in a police station, our escort not thinking it safe to take us to tho railway station followed by the largo crowd, who very effectually pelted us with both stones and filth. All this trouble had apparently arisen because tho foreigner, who could hardly speak a word of English, had been overheard talking conversationally to a companion in a foreign languago, and the ery of ‘ pro-Boer ’ raised. Without my standing by him, I believe he would have been turned out of the enclosure and seriously hurt. That the police failed to disperse the crowd or to make one arrest for such a rabble in a beautiful park on a Sunday afternoon is, I feel, a disgrace to me as a Britisher, and I would beg the County Council so to instruct officials that- in future cases the foolish aggressors and not quiet citizens should leave the park escorted by police. I hope you will publish this as a loyal colonist's protest against mob rule.”