MR H. C. BROOKE, A.A., AND OURSELVES.

Observer, Volume 3, Issue 63, 26 November 1881, Page 163

MR H. C. BROOKE, A.A., AND OURSELVES.

The following interesting and improving epistle reached xxs on Wednesday afternoon, and has remained unanswered up to the present time. Had Mr Tyler's client been a different kind of person, we should probably have gone to the former's office and explained verbally what it is now our intention to put in writing. Experience, however, has taught vis that it is not always safe to rely on a complainant's veracity and gentlemanly feeling. Currant jellyites, who pride themselves on their nice sense of honour, and are currently supposed to be punctilious and upright' to a. degree, have not hesitated, after coming here and begging us as a favour not to mention their names in the paper, to go away and " blow " about the way in which iliey settled "that Observer man." This has determined txs to have all these kind of things unmistakably plain and above-board in future, and we therefore publish Mr Tyler's letter (which was not marked private) as it reached \ia : "TO THE PROPRIETOR OF THE OBSERVER. " Si rj — Mr H. C. Brooke has brought to my attention certain paragraphs that have appearedfrom. time to time for a number of months in the Observer, more particularly those appearing in the last issxie of the same, and requested me to communicate with you upon the subject. The expense and anxiety attendant upon a Supreme Court action are so great that Mr Brooke, unless indeed absolutely compelled to do so for his own protection, does not feel disposed to incur them. In writing to you, therefore, I make no threat of proceedings on account of past injuries Mr Brooke has suffered at your hands. From time to time, with a persistency which strongly evidences the malicious feeling you entertain towards Mr Brooke, you have imputed such conduct to him as, if true, would show him to be, to say the least of it, a most umvorthy, discreditable man. At other times you have held him up to the ridicule scorn and contempt of his fellows. Mr Brooke has, during all this time, shown the greatest forbearance, in the hope that, in time, you would cease attacking so humble an individual as himself, and allow him to live in the community in peace. Your last issue, however, contains such, insulting and untruthful paragraphs that Mr. Brooke feels he must endeavour to put a stop to them, more particularly as he finds he is being injured by them in his credit and reputation. I have to inform you that on the very next occasion you insert, or cause, or allow to be inserted, in the Observer, any article or paragraph in the least reflecting disparagingly upon the character or conduct of Mr Brooke, I have instructions, which. I shall certainly carry out, to commence at once proceedings against you without further notice. I may state before closing that Mr Brooke is the holder of the degree about which you have said so much, and at the proper time and place will prove it. I really cannot see by what authority you call upon him to prove it. It seems nothing short of egotistical effrontery for you to expect that because you choose to doubt a gentleman's word, that he must at once set about endeavouring to satisfy you that what he says is true. I fancy you would derive no harm from reflecting for one moment who and vrhat you are that you should take upon yourself to bring all and sundry before , you to justify their acts and words. The paragraph relating to Mr Brooke's doings on the flagship, I am instructed to say, is a tissue of falsehoods. Mr Brooke had tickets authorising his going on board the flagship, and had no such, conversation as you allege with the captain. I am not, as you think, anxious to bring an action, against you, and I trust you will discontinue your malicious strictures upon Mr Brooke and Ms doings, and no longer strive to crush a perion

"who has done you no harm, and only seeks to earn his livlihood in a quiet way. — I am, etc., E. K. Tyler."

Some of our readers may be of the opinion that the substance of the above might have been condensed into a few lines, but Aye have no wish to give Mr Brooke any handle to say that we suppressed his lawyer's letter, and therefore publish it in extenso The document is a sufficiently remarkable one to have emanated from a solicitor's office, and will probably afford food for much merriment to those who know the great A.A. Taking Mr Tyler's accusations seriatim, we shall commence by denying that the remarks on Mr Brooke's conduct which have appeared from time to time in the Observer were actuated by envy, hatred, malice, or any other improper feeling. The fact is, the young gentleman challenged criticism by his peculiarities, and — t/ot it. He came here a comparative stranger, and, in order to attract notice, adopted the device of appending the letters A.A. to his name. No scholar or University man would be guilty of such a piece of snobbishness, and the action at once excited remark. It should be borne in mind, too, that Brooke's claim to the degree was made, not privately, but publicly. He signed his letters and articles in the Star H. C. Brooke, A.A., sung at concerts and penny-readings as H. C. Brooke, A.A., lectured at Remuera (with the Mayor in the chair) as H. C. Bx'ookc, A.A., and, without doubt, obtained a certain amount of social status amongst ignorant persons through his supposed possession of the degree. To begin ■with, neither we nor any other folks doubted the man's right to the title. The examination is one passed by boys prior to their leaving school, and, a 9 we said before, no sensible man would ever dream of boasting of having got through it. Mr Brooke, however, docs not appear to be sensible. He was perpetually " gassing " about his degree and telling people, moreover, that he passed it at Cambridge. Now, the Cambridge University cannot make an Associate of Arts, so that if Mr Brooke passed the examination there he cannot by any possibility be an A.A. Subsequently the young fellow corrected the discrepancy, and returned to the bosom of his other alma mater ; but the harm had been done, and from that time a number of people began to wonder whether Mr Brooke had passed am/ exa)nination at all. It will now be necessary to refer back to Mr Tyler's epistle. He says we had no right (that it was, in fact, a piece of " egotistical effrontery") for us to call on Mr Brooke to produce proofs of his degree, and asks who we are that we should bring all and sundry before us to justify their acts and words. This sounds very fine at first sight and ought perhaps to crush us to powder, but when analysed the sentence becomes simple nonsense. We are journalists, Mr Tyler, and it is one of our duties as journalists to see that impostors sailing under false colours do not diddle the public. If we have reasons to believe that young Giles Tomnoddy, who hasn't a halfpenny, and who we know to be a hopeless ignoramus, is getting into people's houses and securing their friendship by dint of pretending to be the son of an English peer, or a Victorian squatter or an accomplished scholar with a University degree, are we to hold our tongues and connive at his little games. Certainly not. We must speak out in the proper way — mildly at first, and then if that won't do, strongly. Our treatment of Mr Brooke was, by no means, harsh. He had only to prove to us (or to his employers, the Star if he didn't want to notice the Observer) that he had taken the degree he claims, and the subject would have dropped for ever. How, we ask, is the man's conduct to be accounted for if, in very truth, he has passed the exam. Nothing was easier than to confound us utterly by saying, " I passed the Oxford Senior Local Examinations at such and such a centre and such and such a time, and if you want to verify my statement you can write home to the authorities yourselves." But Mr Brooke did nothing of the sort. He merely abused the Observer, said he would try his best to ruin the paper, and announced that the Associate of Arts certificate was " hanging up in my papa's back drawing-room." On this we promised to cease all mention of the A.A. degree for three months, so that Mr Brooke might have time to send home to procure his certificate, and we also offered the sum of £5 for the production of the same. It was openly stated too that a letter would be sent by the ensuing mail to Oxford enquiring whether Mr H. C. Bi'ooke ever had passed the examination in question. Well, the three months elapsed, and the certificate never came, but a letter from the Secretary of the Local Exams did and this says emphatically, "No person of the name of Herbert Claude Brooke has the right to call himself an Associate of Arts." In the face of this evidence, and without giving any contrary testimony, Mr Brooke still claims that he is an. A.A. Well, we leave the settlement of the question to the public. In so far as we are concerned, the subject is worked out. It was our duty to prove whether Mr Brooke was inasqiierading under false colours or not, and we think we have done so. With regard to the other paragraph complained of, which refers to Mr Brooke's conduct on regatta day, there is nothing to be said save that if the testimony of three disinterested onlookers can be believed, the statements were strictly true. These gentlemen also aver that a good deal might have been said about Mr Brooke's conduct at the North Shore entertainment in the evening. The fact is Mr Brooke has ue.ver been mentioned in the Observer save when he has made himself either notorious or conspicuous in some way or another. We treat him as we treat, everyone else who attaacts attention by unusual behaviour in a public place, neither better nor worse. Certainly there was no reason why we should exercise any particular forbearance towards the young man. He avowed his intention to ruin the paper if he possibly could. He contributed letters and pars of a most grossly insulting nature to a contemporary, and generally did his little all to make himself a nuisance. Had Brook wished to put a stop to what he calls our persecution, he had only to come like a man and ask us not to mention him. We should then have said, "Well, Mr Brooke, unless you do something very outrageous in public, we shall be glad to accede to your request." It was not, however, likely that we •were going to pay any attention to threats and

bombast ; nor can we consent to be bounced and lectured by Mr Tyler. We have not libelled MiBrooke in the past, and we shall take every care not to libel him in the future.