Truth "MISTER" MEATH.

NZ Truth, Issue 136, 25 January 1908, Page 4

Truth

" MISTER " MEATH.

Published Every Saturday Morning at Luke's Lane (off Mannersstreet), WELLINGTON, N.Z. Subscription (m advance), is's, PER ANNUM. SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1908.

"Truth," according to many people, is a most disrespectful rag, which once, after having publicly pilloried some blasphemous pulpit-banger was accused by the bounder of having ho respect even for God. However, that does not matter. This paper is often moved to most unseemly mirth at the mention of a miserable mountebank of a belted British Earl, who forgets his name half the time, and generally subscribes himself "Meath. !1 Now, Meath can he imagined' as? a sort of undersized rat, of the Methodist belief, who affects dundreary Whiskers, and who. sombre and sober and perhaps silly m his methods, is quite unconsciously a low comedian, who, were he 1o strut Fuller's variety stage, would at once sustain a.

glorious success. Meath has a rat, bo's dotty on Empire, and if he does rjo down te posterity, jt will be b«^ cause he advocated Empire- Uty oji the 24th of every May, and on which day, cold-spouted, shivering, hungry little school-kids vainly endeavored to warm their tummies with stale buns and sour ginger-beer, and exercised their leatheriy lungs with the dlrgeful "Gorsave." Some men, less pretentious than "Mr" Meath\ have gone down to posterity for having perpetrated sillier joke's than Empire Day, but there hovers around this miserable Mountebank Meath something that is incongruous and ridiculous, and though nobody exists who has seen "Meath" m the flesh, he apparently does exist,/ and exists solely to make an ass of 'himself over Empire Day, aiid the Empire movement, whatever that happens to be. Certainly few take the belted Earl seriously, no one regards him in-ear-nest, and nobody but the small boy will revere him, but then that respect is due to the fact that Meath gets him a holiday on May 24, though stale buns and sour ginger-beer is small recompense for bellowing the National Anthem and the hoisting of the "dear old flag. "Mr" Meath has broken out m a fresh place of late, and we find him occupying, under the meaningless name of "Meath," "Lancaster Gate, London," space m several New Zealand papers, urging his ridiculous movement, which he declares riot to be a mere bun arid gingel--pop guzzle on 'May 24, but a movement .which has for its object the systematic training of children m all tlie qualities and virtues which tend towards good citizenship, the watchwords ;of which movement are, "Responsibility, Duty, .Sympathy and Self-Sacrifice. " In order to further the movement an "Empire Catechism" has been published, and it is hoped that eveiy British child wiii learn it by heart and m home and m the school, and, of course, the cateohism has a price, a small price, it is true, something like a sprat a dozen or a hundred for three bob. ari winding up his dilly diatribe on Imperial doctrine, the meaningless Meath advocates that every school should possess a Dag-staff, a fullsi^d Union Jack, a large map of the Empire, ~nd a portrait of the King. What 4 he devil all this is to do with responsibility and duty and self-sac-rifice and sympathy, or anything else i more than "Truth" or Meath can tell. An Empire Catechism, no doubt, would be very- interesting were it :un on such lines as the start, the progress, arid the conclusion of the Boer war. The small boy might aho be' ked who made him, and he'd probably answer Meath, and the question "Who is Meath ?" would puzzle the said small boy, who would give it up- in disgust, but w ' I probably couple ' the meaningless name with stale puffs and ginger-beer, the waving of th? flag that t\ad braved- the battles aiid the beers of countless ages. Anyhow, Meath the mealy mouthed. Meath the mutton-chop whiskered person; is, getting on our pprves, and he is liable to make everybody miserable. Meath ought hot to be encouraged. Still, it must be a huge "ource of satisfaction to hirri to learn . that m New Zealand, Eminire Day is a public holiday, and that the small- boy stops away from' school, and is told that he belongs to a powerful nation that is black. and brown and brindle,' but that the. white is no class. The small boy certainly wouldn't get any _Rmpire Catechism so long as bis parents remember the Boer War and lots of- otlier things for which the blood-thirsty, boodling Empire sacrificed so much human Pesh and blood. The small boy ouffht to be tav.glrfc that Meath is a sin-gulp rl v silly sort of sausage that should be yiolentlv dtscoura<red, who should be sent, ; to Colney Hatch and given a map, and a Union Jack and there start an Emnire of his own. Anyhow, damn Meath ! , ' '