A MISERABLE RAS.

NZ Truth, Issue 135, 18 January 1908, Page 4

A MISERABLE RAS.

Little Kathleen "Maureen Meade accidentally killed ihersclf at St. Klilda, Dunedin, one day 1 last week, and the sad fatality, the cutting off of a, bright life, the bereavement of her doting parents were as nothing to that miserable pence-pinching print, the "Post," which could not content itself with calling the occurrence an accident or a fatality, but brazenly and brutally printed l it a suicide. The pinch-penny press is notorious for this nasty sort of thing. It ppnders to the morbid mind which loves to dwell on suicide or murder, and it is to appease this class that the daily agony will 'freely outrage the feelings of bereaved relatives and attribute motives for suicide where none actually exists. The "Post" lives on horrors, and it was, therefore, only natural that when news came through of Katie's sad ending that it immediately pandered to those deceased palates that scorn an accident but revel jin a suicide, particularly the suicide of a young maiden. There was absolutely no ground for the "Post" to spread the scandal of Kathleen Meade's death as suicide. The evidence at the inquest negatived the suggestion. The Coroner who presided at the inquest must have had m his mind the scandalous -reports of the daily papers when he summed the case up to the jury,, who found a verdict o.f accidental death. The Coroner said that from the eviddnce of the doctor and the girl's father it might reasonably be concluded that the affair was purely an accident. He considered they should have no hesitation m coming to that conclusion. There was nothing to suggest suicide. The girl was on good terms with her mother and father and all the family. The doctor had refuted any idea of scandal. He considered the jury would be perfectly justified m returning a verdict of accidental death, and there was not a word of this, of, course, m the horrifying "Post."* It would have been decent on the pious print's part to have declared that it was m error when it made a sensation of an accident and called it suicide. There was no regard for the harrowed feelings of sorrowful' parents. Not a word of regret is said. • Nothing to remove the reproach of scandal. Truly, the "Post" is a miserable . rag.