In iteration theory of rational, entire and meromorphic functions it is well known that the Julia set is the closure of the set of repulsive periodic points. Whereas the proof in the rational case is elementary, the original proofs in the entire and meromorphic case both rely on a deep theorem of Ahlfors, the five island theorem. Recently, Schwick [7] gave a very nice elementary proof for the entire case. Using a result of Lehto and Virtanen, we can extend his proof even beyond the classical meromorphic case.