SCOTS ANGRY.

Grey River Argus, 5 November 1928, Page 5

SCOTS ANGRY.

WITH G. B. SHAW. At Declining Invitation. (Australian & N.Z. Cable Assn). (Received November 4 at, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON. November .3,,. Mr Bernard Shaw’s custom of sending a printed postcard, curtly refusing to onen bazaars, or to rpeak at public dinners, has stirred up a hornet’s nest in the 'l’iinity Literary Society at Glasgow, which offered the dramatist a fee of forty guineas to come and speak, but. rec< ived only Jiis usual postcard. Instead of meekly receiving Mr Shaw’s “No,” the Rev Mr H. S. Me-' i'lellaml the President, is reported as having pointed out that Mr G. K. Chesterton, Dean Inge, Sir O. Lodge. Mr Augustine Jlirrell, Dr Barnes, Mr John Masefield, and other prominen* men, had accepted the invitation of the Society, whereas Mr Shaw had accompani< d his refusal by some gratuitous and “typically insolent” ad-' vice to hand over th e fee of forty guineas to some young man. Rev Mr McClelland added that “the replies of other lec'urers of international . reputation showed that it was possible to b e both a genius and a gentleman.” He could not accept the plea that Mr Bernard Shaw was too busy, as he had ample to time to ba k almos’ naked on a raft in the sunny seas of the Riviera, or to spend an evening with a famous Yankee p l, gi-

Mr Shaw has replied to the Society with a postcard, in broadest Doric, as follows:—“Hoots, hoots, mon! Dinna tak’ offence whaur mine is meant, and gie yer siller to the. young ane 1 telt ye.” He added a postscrip': “1 tru-t i his is worthy of a devoted student of Burns ami Scott.”