Ananias Agencies

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4, 26 January 1905, Page 2

Ananias Agencies

According to ' Mr. Dooley,' the people of ' the unchanging East ' deserve the gold medal for the artistic finish ot their fibbing. 'We make qur lies be machinery,' says he ; l they turn out theirs be hanid. They imitate tihe best iv our canned lies to deceive people that likes that kind, but for artfs"ts they have lies that appeals to a more refined taste.' In Catholic matters the cable-demon is usWally (as we have frequently shown) a crujde ajnd clumsy and (so to say) untechnical sort of a liar. And yet, in the face of repeated exposure, tihere are many who accept as gospel every statement ttuat emanates from him. For the average newspaper devQurer has somewhat of the spirit of Aunt Cynthia, who held it as an article of faith that the moon is made of green cheese. 'I am certain sure ft must be true,' said she, ' for I read it in the -paper. 1 Catholics, however, are by mo means alone in their suspicions of the man thtat ' rigs ' the cable-news. It will come as- a dhiock to miany to know that the war cable-grammist is to the ondinary cable-demon what the slant-eyed Eastern is to the' bungling Ananias of tfoe West.

We make the statement on the authority of one who ougjht to know— to wit, ' Smiler ' Hales, the noted Australian journalist, himself a war correspondent of mjore ttta/ri oridrriaxy note. ' Fully three-fourths of the

cable-matter,' said he in speaking of the South African war, 'is utter rot. J used to think that the Coolgar'dic mining export was the most awßul liar that this country (Australia) had produced, but not now. Bless his simple sioul, he was a mere novice' in the art of dodging the truth and lighting on lies, compared with the man who manufactures war news for export. The latter gentleman qan stand up in a pair of blucher boots and calmly squeeze more unadulterated crimson lies through his lace-holes in an hour than a mining expert Coord turn out with a steam typewriter in a week.'

We understand that ' Smiler ' Hales will shortly be detailing, for tihe benefit of Australian and New Zealand audiences, his experiences as an exporter of w.ar-news gathered or fotmd or manufactured where Russ and Jap have been clawing and hacking and hewing each other in far Mamchuria. We shall kee<p our eyes on t|he lace-boles of those bluiohcr boots.