["A Waratah Joke", West Gippsland Gazette (Warragul, Vic.), Tuesday 05 October 1909, page 2]
A WARATAH JOKE.
A few days ago at Warrnambool a foolish fellow with little brains and less heart perpetrated "his joke" on the missing steamer "Waratah." This is how the "Standard" of that town deals with him. A day of two ago a bottle was picked up on the local beach containing a piece of paper on which was written a message purporting to emanate from the captain of the missing Waratah. The precious document was brought to the "Standard" office and was obviously such a palpable hoax as to be unworthy of notice. However, a report of the incident appears to have spread about the town, with the result that a number of enquiries has been made as to whether any reliance was to placed on the information said to have come to hand. It may therefore, be as well to explain that the alleged message was nothing more than a clumsily-concoted ruse, and that it had both ignorance and heartlessness stamped upon its face. The perpetrator of the "joke" is welcome to whatever satisfaction he can derive from this criticism, but if he accepts our advice he will at once attend the free night school at Warrnambool, and at the same time endeavor to develop some slight modicum of mental acuteness."
