SHYLOCK 'A LIBEL'

Wairarapa Age, 1 April 1920, Page 3

SHYLOCK ' A LIBEL'

MACBETH A "STAIN ON THE SCOTTISH KILT."

Members of the League of Scottish Veterans of the World War met in solemn conclave in New York recently and after due deliberation pasßed a formal rosoltuoin demanding that Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth" bo removed from the curriculum of English literature studies in American schools.

The gallant and patriotio Scotsmen have not taken this draatic course without good reason. Latoly the Board of Education at Newark, the New Jersey city just across the Hudson river from New York, decided to bar "The Merchant of Venice" from the city schools on the ground that tho character of Shylock is a libel on the Jewish race. This act came to the notice of tho Scottish veterans, nearly all of whom sorved in tho ranks of the Gordons, tho Black Watch, and other famouß fighting regiments. Full of tho prido of tho race and not to be outdone, they foregathered in a Now York hotel and passed the above-mentioned resolution, which "in view of the action of the Newark authorities in regard to the .slander of the Jew," called on the American people "to extend the same privilege to Scotland. » The Scot further declared "that tho glorious clan of the Macbeths and the whole Scottish raco had been traduced by the misrepresentations of Shakespeare in presenting Macbeth as a murderer and a traitor. Wo consider that if the Jewish gabardine is to be cleaned by American boards of education, the stain should likewise bo removed from tho Scottish kilt."