[Editor: An article about a group of off-duty Australian troops attacking a South African newspaper during the Boer War. Published in The Wagga Wagga Advertiser, 2 May 1901.]
Lively Australians
The “Cape Times” gives the following account of the wrecking of the office of the “South African News,” reported by cable on Saturday. A body of the Australian troops, who are about to return to their homes, spent a lively hour in town on Thursday. Smarting under the stigmas which they declared had been levelled against them in the columns of the “South African News,” one of the grievances being the journal was alleged to have stigmatised the Australian Contingents as “scum,” a number of men wended their way to the office of the paper, in Church-street. They smashed the windows, and, entering the promises, they laid about them with such vigor that within a very few minutes they made the place more or less a wreck. Mr. Centlivres, the manager, escaped by jumping out of his office window, and bounding off the stoep into the street. The troops proceeded upstairs, and made free with the subeditor’s and reporters’ offices, some of the editorial staff escaping on to the roof, in the hope of being able to summon police assistance. The prank ended here, for recognising that their grievance was not against the mechanical departments, they refrained from passing into the composing or printing works. Afterwards the men left, cooeeing cheerily through the streets. The police were called in, and the damage pointed out to them by Mr. Centlivres.
Source:
The Wagga Wagga Advertiser (Wagga Wagga, NSW), Thursday 2 May 1901, page 4
Editor’s notes:
stoep = [Afrikaans] a veranda; also, a small porch or a flight of steps situated at the front entrance of a building (Anglicised as “stoop”)
[Editor: Corrected “a a number” to “a number”.]
Leave a Reply