ALLEGED LIBEL.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 December 1921, Page 7

ALLEGED LIBEL.

AGAINST MAORILAND WORKER. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington. Dec. 7. John Glover was to-day committed for trial on a charge of having published in the Maoriland Worker on October 12, 1921, a blasphemous libel. The alleged offence consisted in the publication of the following words: “Oh, Jesus send me a word to-day and I’ll believe in your bread and wine and get my bloody old sins washed white.” Mr. Maeassey, for the Crown, said the words in question were published in a poem entitled “Stand to Good Friday Morn.” Mr. O'Regan, for Glover, said the poem from which the words were taken was by Seigfried Sassoon, one of a family of Bombay bankers, who he believed was a Jew. Sassoon won some distinction during the war, and the poem published in the Worker was one from a volume of poetry describing the writer’s -feeling on the field of battle. The book was on sale in the Dominion, and. counsel read complimentary references to it in the London Times and a local review. The last lines of the poem, the alleged offending lines, were a usual illustration of poetic license and were the kind of sentiments one might expect a Jew to express. Glover, who pleaded not guilty, wjis allowed bail in one surety of £llOO or two of £f>o.