kingdom blooming in this present February 1877, in the government
Botanic Gardens of Brisbane;' said gardens being then in the height
of their midsummer glory, and a perfect blaze of colour. 'One of the
most strikingly handsome as well as curious trees in the gardens is the
_Kilgeria pinnata_, from India. Its branches bear a kind of drooping
flexible vine-rope or liana stem, each of which terminates in a large
spike of flowers; while at various parts of the said rope pendants,
hang huge seed-pods, like in shape unto the weights of an extra large
cuckoo-clock.' Several varieties of the mango just now are in fine
bearing, and the wine-palm of the West African coast was never more
juicy and strawberry-like in flavour. Ferns and palms are magnificent,
but after all, the Queenslander finds a native plant excite his
admiration most. 'No description can do justice to the exquisite colour
of the so-called blue water-lily of this colony. It is _not_ blue, nor
white, nor mauve, nor lilac, but has a blended dash of all of them, and
is lovelier than any. A Swiss or French dyer who could reproduce it
faithfully would make his fortune. It is a colour suggestive of summer
afternoons, of lawns, of croquet, of classic villas, swell society,
and five o'clock teas in the garden, with greyhounds, spaniels, pretty
girls, and rosy children grouped about miscellaneous like.'
Acclimatisation has succeeded too thoroughly in one instance--the
rabbit, as we have had occasion to shew in a previous paper, having
increased and multiplied until the colonists have reason to wish he had
never been induced to settle in the land. One wheat-grower, wroth at
having to sit up o' nights with his farm hands, dogs, bullock-bells,
and tin cans, in order to scare the little pests back to their
burrows, lest, like his neighbours, he should have nothing left to
reap, declares either the rabbit or the farmer must go down; there is
no longer room for both. Sheep-farmers are in a similar predicament;
but their trouble is of native growth; the kangaroo is their _bête
noire_, and they are busy arming against the pouched depredators.
Kangaroo battues are the rage. At one held at Warroo, upwards of three
thousand five hundred of these animals were disposed of in ten days;
making eight thousand of which the run had been cleared in the space
of a month--equivalent to saving pasturage for a like number of sheep.
Another sheep-owner, after shooting down four thousand kangaroos on a
small portion of his run, finds it necessary to call in outside aid,
and lay in tons of cartridges for the use of those who respond to the
appeal. By reports just to hand (Oct. 1877) we find that the process of
kangaroo extermination is still at work.
There are other nuisances it would be well to see to. A woodman at
Maryborough lately died of a scorpion sting; and we read of a man being
bitten by a black snake while working a short distance from Brisbane.
His mates scarified the wound, bound up the arm, and administered a
large dose of brandy; put the patient into a cart, and made for a
dispensary with all possible speed. Here the wound was scarified again;
and a doctor passing by, being called in, cauterised it, and injected
ammonia. In a few minutes the man's spasmodic struggles ceased, and
he was able to walk to a cab. By the time he reached the hospital all
traces of the venom had disappeared, and he seemed only to suffer
from the effects of the spirits he had imbibed. The ammonia treatment
of snake-bite is not efficacious with the lower animals; at least
in a series of experiments upon dogs, not a single canine sufferer
recovered. Although Queensland is reputed to be a land of rivers
and streams, there are tracts where water is scarce, and those who
recklessly go on the tramp, or 'wallaby,' as this kind of vagabondising
is called, sometimes experience the horrors of thirst, and actually
sink down and die in the wilderness.
To prove the truth of this, and to shew that examples are not wanting
of travellers who have died of thirst, a correspondent of the
_Queenslander_ tells how, following the tracks of some horses that
had strayed from their beat, he came upon a pair of moleskin trousers
hanging upon a tree, as if put there for a signal of distress. Looking
about, he picked up a torn pocket, containing an illegible cheque and a
match-box; and scattered about on the grass saw a blanket, shirt, hat,
and water-bag. Searching further, he found the skull and bones of a
man who had apparently been dead some two or three weeks; some of the
flesh was still on the bones, and the brains were almost intact. Bags
of flour, tea, and sugar lay near; a proof that the poor fellow had not
died of hunger, but of thirst, the nearest water being twelve miles
from the spot where he died his lonely death.
Thomas Stevenson, a lad of seventeen, started one December morning
from his brother's station, some fifty miles from Louth, New South
Wales, for the post-office at that place, which he reached safely,
and left again at daybreak on the Saturday. The following Wednesday
his horse arrived home, bearing his rider's coat, scarf, and spurs.
His brother started for the bush with some black trackers, who found
that the missing lad had been wandering on the Debil-Debil Mountains,
but finding it impossible to get his horse down them, had turned back
to get round the base of the mountains, but mistaking the road and
overtaken by darkness, had camped out and hobbled his horse. After a
three days' search the trackers discovered the body of young Stevenson
lying between two logs in a lonely part of the bush. The weather had
been extremely hot, and it was known he had no water-bag with him; so
there was little doubt that he died of thirst. After losing his way
and losing hope, he must have taken off his coat, scarf, and spurs,
fastened them to a saddle, and turned the horse loose. Then placing
the two logs on a track, he had lain down between them with his head
resting on a cross-piece at one end, and so waited Death's releasing
hand.
If advertising means business, business should be brisk indeed at
Darling Downs, since the editor of the _Darling Downs Gazette_ finds
it necessary to explain the absence of the customary 'leader' in this
wise: 'Owing to a press of advertis---- In fact it is coming to this,
that we shall have to throw up the business if people come hustling
their advertisements in at the rate they are doing. The general
appreciation of the fact that the _Gazette_ is bound to be read by
everybody, is becoming overwhelming. We plead guilty to no leader
this time; but what were we to do? Only just now a bald-headed man
came rushing in---- But stop! let us first explain that we mean no
offence to bald-headed men, and they needn't get up in arms. Goodness
knows, we were bald-headed enough ourselves once upon a time, and
used to be up in arms frequently about that period. Ask our nurse.
However, as we were about to say, a bald-headed man came hustling in
just as we had commenced our leader, and had got as far as, "When the
history of mankind shall have been disinterred from the triturated and
inevaporable sediments of its consummated cosmogony"--and while with
our pen suspended we were working up the continuation in the same gay
and sparkling style, that bald-headed man violently brought us down
from the ethereal heights in which we were soaring, and wanted to know
whether we could spare space for a column or so of advertisements. He
fluttered some dingy papers, each marked five pounds, under our eyes,
and we rather liked it. But we conquered our feelings and remarked:
"Caitiff! our duty to our readers demands a leading article; hang
advertisements! Take your beak from out our heart; take your form
from off our door." The wretch winked, and went to the book-keeper,
and inveigled him into finding space for that advertisement. Since
then, there have been processions of bald and hairy men with insidious
manners and fluttering notes, palming off advertisements on us. In
short--or if the reader objects to that phrase as inappropriate--at
length, we have no leading article, and if the reader could only
witness our tears!'
With certain parliamentary proceedings fresh in remembrance, we
dare not cast stones at our cousins for not eliminating the rowdy
element from their legislatures. That it should be predominant is not
surprising, since we are assured, that in view of a coming dissolution,
candidates swarm on the ground like frogs in a marsh. Every man who
has figured in the insolvent list for the last three years; every
boot-black whose stock of materials has given out; wild wood-carters
whose only horse and hope is dead; country newspaper reporters down on
their luck; country-town bellmen whose vocation has been supplanted;
seedy men who cry penny papers in the streets: in short, all Bohemia
and its dependencies have taken the field with a view to winning
senatorial honours and the three hundred a year going with them.
Prominent among these candidates stand Tom M'Inerney, who bases his
claims upon the fact that he owns fifteen drays and fourteen children,
and is under the impression that S. I. after a man's name denote him
to be a civil engineer; and Patrick Tyrrell, who objects to 'circular'
education, and who proved himself a real Irishman when asked if he
would tax absentees, by replying: 'To be sure I would, if they didn't
live in the country.'
However Australian legislators may indulge in libellous personalities,
it is pleasant to note that such things are not received into favour
by the press; the _Queenslander_ notifying to all concerned, that 'any
statement, comment, or criticism of a personal character calculated to
provoke ill-feeling in the community from which it may be penned, will
not only be rigorously excluded, as hitherto, but any correspondent
who may think fit to forward such matter for publication will be
immediately requested to discontinue his connection with this journal.'
To be perfect, this notification only needs the N.B.--English papers
please copy.
TAKING IT COOLLY.
Some of many instances of extraordinary coolness in the midst of
danger and otherwise that have been recorded, are here offered to our
readers, together with some amusing sayings and doings. When gallant
Ponsonby lay grievously wounded on the field of Waterloo, he forgot
his own desperate plight while watching an encounter between a couple
of French lancers and one of his own men, cut off from his troop. As
the Frenchmen came down upon Murphy, he, using his sword as if it were
a shillelagh, knocked their lances alternately aside again and again.
Then suddenly setting spurs to his horse, he galloped off full speed,
his eager foes following in hot pursuit, but not quite neck and neck.
Wheeling round at exactly the right moment, the Irishman, rushing
at the foremost fellow, parried his lance, and struck him down. The
second, pressing on to avenge his comrade, was cut through diagonally
by Murphy's sword, falling to the earth without a cry or a groan; while
the victor, scarcely glancing at his handiwork, trotted off whistling
_The Grinder_.
Ponsonby's brave cavalry-man knew how to take things coolly, which,
according to Colonel R. P. Anderson, is the special virtue of the
British man-of-war, who, having the utmost reliance in himself and his
commanders, is neither easily over-excited nor readily alarmed. In
support of his assertion, the colonel relates how two tars, strolling
up from the Dil-Kusha Park, where Lord Clyde's army was stationed,
towards the Residency position at Lucknow, directed their steps by
the pickets of horse and foot. Suddenly, a twenty-four-pound shot
struck the road just in front of them. 'I'm blessed, Bill,' said one
of the tars, 'if this here channel is properly buoyed!' and on the
happy-go-lucky pair went towards the Residency, as calmly as if they
had been on Portsmouth Hard. During the same siege, a very young
private of the 102d was on sentry, when an eight-inch shell, fired
from a gun a hundred yards off, burst close to him, making a deal of
noise and throwing up an immense quantity of earth. Colonel Anderson
rushed to the spot. The youthful soldier was standing quietly at his
post, close to where the shell had just exploded. Being asked what had
happened, he replied unconcernedly: 'I think a shell has busted, sir.'
Towards the close of the fight of Inkermann, Lord Raglan, returning
from taking leave of General Strangways, met a sergeant carrying
water for the wounded. The sergeant drew himself up to salute, when
a round-shot came bounding over the hill, and knocked his forage-cap
out of his hand. The man picked it up, dusted it on his knee, placed
it carefully on his head, and made the salute, not a muscle of his
countenance moving the while. 'A neat thing that, my man?' said Lord
Raglan. 'Yes, my lord,' returned the sergeant, with another salute;
'but a miss is as good as a mile.' The commander was probably not
surprised by such an exhibition of _sang-froid_, being himself good
that way. He was badly hurt at Waterloo; and, says the Prince of
Orange, who was in the hospital, 'I was not conscious of the presence
of Lord Fitzroy Somerset until I heard him call out in his ordinary
tone: "Hollo! Don't carry that arm away till I have taken off my ring!"
Neither wound nor operation had extorted a groan from his lips.'
The Indian prides himself upon taking good or ill in the quietest
of ways; and from a tale told in Mr Marshall's _Canadian Dominion_,
his civilised half-brother would seem to be equally unemotional.
Thanks mainly to a certain Métis or half-breed in the service of the
Hudson Bay Company, a Sioux warrior was found guilty of stealing a
horse, and condemned to pay the animal's value by instalments, at one
of the Company's forts. On paying the last instalment, he received
his quittance from the man who had brought him to justice, and left
the office. A few moments later the Sioux returned, advanced on his
noiseless moccasins within a pace of the writing-table, and levelled
his musket full at the half-breed's head. Just as the trigger was
pulled, the Métis raised the hand with which he was writing and touched
lightly the muzzle of the gun; the shot passed over his head, but his
hair was singed off in a broad mass. The smoke clearing away, the
Indian was amazed to see his enemy still lived. The other looked him
full in the eyes for an instant, and quietly resumed his writing. The
Indian silently departed unpursued; those who would have given chase
being stopped by the half-breed with: 'Go back to your dinner, and
leave the affair to me.'
When evening came, a few whites, curious to see how the matter would
end, accompanied the Métis to the Sioux encampment. At a certain
distance he bade them wait, and advanced alone to the Indian tents.
Before one of these sat crouched the baffled savage, singing his own
death-hymn to the tom-tom. He complained that he must now say good-bye
to wife and child, to the sunlight, to his gun and the chase. He told
his friends in the spirit-land to expect him that night, when he would
bring them all the news of their tribe. He swung his body backwards and
forwards as he chanted his strange song, but never once looked up--not
even when his foe spurned him with his foot. He only sang on, and
awaited his fate. Then the half-breed bent his head and spat down on
the crouching Sioux, and turned leisurely away--a crueller revenge than
if he had shot him dead.
It is not given to every one to play the philosopher, and accept
fortune's buffets and favours with equal placidity. Horatios are
scarce. But there are plenty of people capable of behaving like
Spartans where the trouble does not touch their individuality. 'How can
I get out of this?' asked an Englishman, up to his armpits in a Scotch
bog, of a passer-by. 'I dinna think ye _can_ get oot of it,' was the
response of the Highlander as he went on his way.
Mistress of herself was the spouse of the old gentleman, who contrived
to tumble off the ferryboat into the Mississippi, and was encouraged
to struggle for dear life by his better-half shouting: 'There, Samuel;
didn't I tell you so? Now then, work your legs, flap your arms, hold
your breath, and repeat the Lord's Prayer--for its mighty onsartin,
Samuel, whether you land in Vicksburg or eternity!'
Thoroughly oblivious of court manners was the red-cloaked old Kentish
dame who found her way into the tent occupied by Queen Charlotte, at a
Volunteer review held shortly after her coming to England, and after
staring at the royal lady with her arms akimbo, observed: 'Well, she's
not so ugly as they told me she was!'--a compliment the astonished
queen gratefully accepted, saying: 'Well, my good woman, I am very glad
of dat.' Probably Her Majesty forgave her critic's rudeness as the
outcome of rustic ignorance and simplicity.
There is no cooler man than your simple fellow. While General Thomas
was inspecting the fortifications of Chattanooga with General Garfield,
they heard some one shout: 'Hello, mister! You! I want to speak to
you!' General Thomas, turning, found he was the 'mister' so politely
hailed by an East Tennessean soldier.
'Well, my man,' said he, 'what do you want with me?'
'I want to get a furlough, mister, that's what I want,' was the reply.
'Why do you want a furlough, my man?' inquired the general.
'Wall, I want to go home and see my wife.'
'How long is it since you saw her?'
'Ever since I enlisted; nigh on to three months.'
'Three months!' exclaimed the commander. 'Why, my good fellow, I have
not seen my wife for three years!'
The Tennessean looked incredulous, and drawled out: 'Wall, you see, me
and _my_ wife ain't that sort!'
The Postmaster-general of the United States once received an odd
official communication; the Raeborn postmaster, new to his duties,
writing to his superior officer: 'Seeing by the regulations that I am
required to send you a letter of advice, I must plead in excuse that I
have been postmaster but a short time; but I will say, if your office
pays no better than mine, I advise you to give it up.' To this day,
that Postmaster-general has not decided whether his subordinate was an
ignoramus or was quietly poking fun at him.
Spite of the old axiom about self-praise, many are of opinion that
the world is apt to take a man at his own valuation. If that be true,
there is a church dignitary in embryo somewhere in the young deacon,
whose examining bishop felt it requisite to send for the clergyman
recommending him for ordination, in order to tell him to keep that
young man in check; adding by way of explanation: 'I had the greatest
difficulty, sir, to prevent him examining me!' This not to be abashed
candidate for clerical honours promises to be as worthy of the cloth as
the American minister who treated his village congregation to one of Mr
Beecher's sermons, unaware that the popular Brooklyn preacher made one
of his hearers. Accosting him after service, Mr Beecher said: 'That was
a fair discourse; how long did it take you to write it?'
'Oh, I tossed it off one evening,' was the reply.
'Indeed!' said Mr Beecher. 'Well, it took me much longer than that to
think out the framework of that sermon.'
'Are you Henry Ward Beecher?' asked the sermon-stealer.
'I am,' said that gentleman.
'Well, then,' said the other, not in the least disconcerted, 'all I
have to say is, that I ain't ashamed to preach one of your sermons
anywhere.'
We do not know if Colman invented the phrase, 'As cool as a cucumber;'
but he makes the Irishman in _The Heir-at-Law_ say: 'These two must
be a rich man that won't lend, and a borrower; for one is trotting
about in great distress, and t' other stands cool as a cucumber.' Of
the two, the latter was more likely to have been intending a raid on
another man's purse, for the men whose 'very trade is borrowing' are
usually, we might say necessarily, the coolest of the cool; like Bubb
Dodington's impecunious acquaintance, who, rushing across Bond Street,
greeted Dodington with: 'I'm delighted to see you, for I am wonderfully
in want of a guinea.'
Taking out his purse, Bubb shewed that it held but half a guinea.
'A thousand thanks!' cried his tormentor, deftly seizing the coin;
'that will do very well for the present;' and then changed the
conversation. But as he turned to take leave, he inquired: 'By-the-by,
when will you pay me that half-guinea?'
'Pay you? What do you mean?' exclaimed Dodington.
'Mean? Why, I intended to borrow a guinea of you. I have only got half;
but I'm not in a hurry for t' other. Name your own time, only pray keep
it!' saying which, he disappeared round the corner.
'John Phœnix' the American humorist being one night at a theatre,
fancied he saw a friend some three seats in front of him. Turning to
his next neighbour he said: 'Would you be kind enough to touch that
gentleman with your stick?' 'Certainly,' was the reply, and the thing
was done; but when the individual thus assaulted turned round, Phœnix
saw he was not the man he took him for, and became at once absorbed
in the play, leaving his friend with the stick to settle matters with
the gentleman in front, which, as he had no excuse handy, was not done
without considerable trouble. When the hubbub was over, the victim
said: 'Didn't you tell me to tap that man with my stick?' 'Yes.' 'And
what did you want?' 'Oh,' said Phœnix, with imperturbable gravity, 'I
wanted to see whether you _would_ tap him or not!'
'Jack Holmes,' a man-about-town, living no one knew how, was once under
cross-examination by a certain sergeant-at-law, who knew his man too
well. 'Now, sir,' said the learned gentleman, 'tell the jury how you
live?'
'Well,' said Holmes, 'a chop or a steak, and on Sunday perhaps a little
bit of fish; I am a very plain-living man.'
'You know what I mean, sir,' thundered the questioner. 'What do you do
for a living?'
'The same as you, sergeant,' said the witness, tapping his forehead
suggestively; 'and when that fails, I do'--going through the pantomime
of writing across his hand--'a little bit of stuff--the same as you
again.'
'My lud, I shall not ask this obtuse witness any more questions,' said
the angry counsel.
'Brother,' said Baron Martin, 'I think you had better not.'
Here is a hint for our old friend the clown in the pantomime. At the
burning of a provision store, the crowd helped themselves freely. One
man grasped a huge cheese as his share of the salvage; rising up with
it he found himself face to face with a policeman, and with admirable
presence of mind put the plunder into the officer's arms, saying: 'You
had better take care of that, policeman, or some one will be walking
off with it.'
Equally ready to relinquish his loot when there was no help for it was
a Chicago negro, caught by a poultry fancier in the act of carrying off
some of his live stock, and challenged with: 'What are you doing with
my chickens?' 'I wuz gwine fer ter fetch 'em back, boss,' explained he.
'Dere's a nigger roun' here what's bin disputin along er me 'bout dem
chickens. I said dey wuz Coachin Chyniz; an he said dey wuz Alabarmar
pullets; an I wuz jes takin 'em roun' fer ter stablish my nollidge. Dey
don't lay no aigs, does dey, boss? Ef dey does, I'm mighty shamed of
hustlin 'em roun'. Aigs is scase.'
Impudently cool as the darkey was, he must yield the palm for
effrontery to the Erie Railway guard, whose interview with Manager Fisk
is thus related in an American paper.
'You are a conductor on the Erie, I believe?'
'Yes, sir.'
'How long have you been on the road?'
'Fifteen years.'
'Worth some property, I learn?'
'Some.'
'Have a very fine house in Oswego? Cost you some thirty, forty, or
fifty thousand dollars?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Some little money invested in bonds, I am told?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Own a farm near where you reside?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Had nothing when you commenced as conductor on our road?'
'Nothing to speak of.'
'Made the property since?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Been at work for no other parties?'
'No; but I have been saving money, and invested it from time to time to
good advantage.'
'Well, sir, what will you give to settle? Of course you cannot pretend
to say you have acquired this property from what you have saved from
your salary? You will not deny that you have pocketed a great deal
of money belonging to the railway--at least fifty or sixty thousand
dollars? Now, sir, what will you give to settle, and not be disgraced,
as you certainly will be if a trial is brought, and you are compelled
to give up the property you profess to own, but which in reality
belongs to the Company?'