A CHIVALROUS NEW ZEALANDER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7201, 12 September 1901, Page 3

A CHIVALROUS NEW ZEALANDER.

4 The Lcr.don correspondent of the " Star," wi-iting on .August 2, says : — Mr W. ii. Matheson, wno has jusir r.turned to England after eighteen years :n the bush of New Zealand, is .v.deiHly a believer in fair play. He was sitting last Sunday in a, band enclosure in Regent's lark when a foreigner entered io haste, pur.ued by a mob of fitly, with shouts of " pro-Boer." The caretaker wanted Mr Matheson to insist on the foreigner leaving the enclosure and submitting himself to the mercy of the howling crowd now swelled to 100. Thu New Zealander, however, stood by ths foreigner, and eventually a sergeant and five policemen escorted tiie >two to tbe police-station, after inviting them ineffectually to climb a, fence in order to escape- the attention of the crowd, which threw stones and filth at them. Mr MaUieson expresses his astonishment that the police failed to disperse the crowd or to make a single arrest, and begs the County Council to instruct officials that in future the foolish aggressors ai.d not quiet citizens should have the pa.rk escorted by the police. This loyal colonial's protest against mob rule appears in the "Times." Mr Matheson surmises that the whole trouble arose from the foreigner's being heard to speak to a friend in a foreign language, .and ths cry of pro-Boer being raised. This hardly seems likely, for Lon* don at the present time is full "of foreigners speaking a variety of tongues without let or hindrance. It seems more likely that the foreigner had been pretty openly "abusing the British, when* Mr" Matheson so chivalrously took him under his wing. Any way. the- behaviour of the crowd was in noway justified, and Mr Matheson is quite right in believing tliat there is too much of mob rule and too muoh readiness from the Stock Exchange jobbers di.-wn to the Hooligans, to bang a man on the head for b> ing a pro-Boer first, and then having bashed him, to inquire whether he be one or no. A notorious example of this was the smashing of the windows of a patriotic citizen who, in celebration of a. British victory, hoisted the- Union Jack and the Boer .flag below il, to signify the defeat of tne latter.