“I AM UNDONE.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2743, 23 February 1910, Page 7

“ I AM UNDONE.”

A VISITING INDIAN AND “THE TRICK DESPICABLE.

An unsuspecting reporter bad an interesting five minutes with Hassan, the Indian illusionist, who is about- to join the Fuller vaudeville circuit (says the Christchurch 'correspondent of the “Wellington Post”). Hassan has a grievance, and he unburdened his soul with Oriental picturesqueness. “Most honorable and respectable sir,” lie said. “You, the Mighty One, who prints the unspeakable in the paper, I crave you in your magnificence to listen to me in the moan of one in all humility and with abasement towards you, have, with much straining at heart, to complain on my stomach of the. treatment of Your Most- Glorious Government. God Save the King. “By the wisdom of my ignoble forefathers, I have all the honor to be. of the race of the Empire—a Britisher, yet New Zealand—the young Cub oi the Mighty Lion—gives the insult. I, an Empire-one. am only allowed to tread on your shores on Mr. Ben Fuller, the good man who will put up the bond of 2400 rupees; that is, that I must leave again. It is the primest insult. It is the great degradation. Bv Heaven, it is what you call the ‘dead finish,’ for am I not of the British? “You, of the flowing pen, in your great magnificence will put down the ill-timed protest of Hassan: it is good. Your servant will be ever grateful. I sing the ‘Rule Britannia 1 and I pay the income tax. lam a Babu of the Balms. In England my brother eat in the ’Temple and learn the law of the Great Prophets. In the court my father receive his Nobilitv the Prince of Wales. Igo to England and lam a man. I come here and' your land is it of the policeman who ask me to write? I write Arabic; I write Hindustani. and he laugh. I am outdone. It is the Trick Despicable.” Hassan smiled, but at. was plain l<> see that he considered the immigration restriction law a wicked and outrageous thing.