A LITTLE MISTAKE

Whenyou’ve knocked about the country—been away from home for years;When the past, by distance softened, nearly fills your eyes with tears—You are haunted oft, wherever or however you may roam,By a fancy that you ought to go and see the folks at home.You forget the family quarrels—little things that used to jar—And you think of how they’ll worry—how they wonder where you are;You will think you served them badly, and your own part you’ll condemn,And it strikes you that you’ll surely be a novelty to them,For your voice has somewhat altered, and your face has somewhat changed—And your views of men and matters over wider fields have ranged.Then it’s time to save your money, or to watch it (how it goes!);Then it’s time to get a ‘Gladstone’ and a decent suit of clothes;Then it’s time to practise daily with a hair-brush and a comb,Till you drop in unexpected on the folks and friends at home.When you’ve been at home for some time, and the novelty’s worn off,And old chums no longer court you, and your friends begin to scoff;When ‘the girls’ no longer kiss you, crying ‘Jack! how you have changed!’When you’re stale to your relations, and their manner seems estranged;When the old domestic quarrels, round the table thrice a day,Make it too much like the old times—make you wish you’d stayed away,When, in short, you’ve spent your money in the fulness of your heart,And your clothes are getting shabby.... Then it’s high time to depart.

When you’ve been at home for some time, and the novelty’s worn off,And old chums no longer court you, and your friends begin to scoff;When ‘the girls’ no longer kiss you, crying ‘Jack! how you have changed!’When you’re stale to your relations, and their manner seems estranged;When the old domestic quarrels, round the table thrice a day,Make it too much like the old times—make you wish you’d stayed away,When, in short, you’ve spent your money in the fulness of your heart,And your clothes are getting shabby.... Then it’s high time to depart.

’Tis a yarn I heard of a new-chum ‘trap’On the edge of the Never-Never,Where the dead men lie and the black men lie,And the bushman lies for ever.’Twas the custom still with the local blacksTo cadge in the ‘altogether’—They had less respect for our feelings then,And more respect for the weather.The trooper said to the sergeant’s wife:‘Sure, I wouldn’t seem unpleasant;But there’s women and childer about the place,And—barrin’ a lady’s present—‘There’s ould King Billy wid niver a stitchFor a month—may the drought cremate him!—Bar the wan we put in his dhirty head,Where his old Queen Mary bate him.‘God give her strength!—and a peaceful reign—Though she flies in a bit av a passionIf ony wan hints that her shtoyle an’ luksAre a trifle behind the fashion.‘There’s two of the boys by the stable now—Be the powers! I’ll teach the varmintsTo come wid nought but a shirt apiece,And wid dirt for their nayther garmints.‘Howld on, ye blaggards! How dare ye dareTo come widin sight av the houses?—I’ll give ye a warnin’ all for wanceAn’ a couple of ould pair of trousers.’They took the pants as a child a toy,The constable’s words beguilingA smile of something beside their joy;And they took their departure smiling.And that very day, when the sun was low,Two blackfellows came to the station;They were filled with the courage of Queensland rumAnd bursting with indignation.The constable noticed, with growing ire,They’d apparently dressed in a hurry;And their language that day, I am sorry to say,Mostly consisted of ‘plurry.’The constable heard, and he wished himself backIn the land of the bogs and the ditches—‘You plurry big tight-britches p’liceman, what forYou gibbit our missuses britches?’And this was a case, I am bound to confess,Where civilisation went under;Had one of the gins beenlessmodest in dressHe’d never have made such a blunder.And here let the moral be duly made known,And hereafter signed and attested:We should place more reliance on that which is shownAnd less upon what is suggested.

’Tis a yarn I heard of a new-chum ‘trap’On the edge of the Never-Never,Where the dead men lie and the black men lie,And the bushman lies for ever.

’Twas the custom still with the local blacksTo cadge in the ‘altogether’—They had less respect for our feelings then,And more respect for the weather.

The trooper said to the sergeant’s wife:‘Sure, I wouldn’t seem unpleasant;But there’s women and childer about the place,And—barrin’ a lady’s present—

‘There’s ould King Billy wid niver a stitchFor a month—may the drought cremate him!—Bar the wan we put in his dhirty head,Where his old Queen Mary bate him.

‘God give her strength!—and a peaceful reign—Though she flies in a bit av a passionIf ony wan hints that her shtoyle an’ luksAre a trifle behind the fashion.

‘There’s two of the boys by the stable now—Be the powers! I’ll teach the varmintsTo come wid nought but a shirt apiece,And wid dirt for their nayther garmints.

‘Howld on, ye blaggards! How dare ye dareTo come widin sight av the houses?—I’ll give ye a warnin’ all for wanceAn’ a couple of ould pair of trousers.’

They took the pants as a child a toy,The constable’s words beguilingA smile of something beside their joy;And they took their departure smiling.

And that very day, when the sun was low,Two blackfellows came to the station;They were filled with the courage of Queensland rumAnd bursting with indignation.

The constable noticed, with growing ire,They’d apparently dressed in a hurry;And their language that day, I am sorry to say,Mostly consisted of ‘plurry.’

The constable heard, and he wished himself backIn the land of the bogs and the ditches—‘You plurry big tight-britches p’liceman, what forYou gibbit our missuses britches?’

And this was a case, I am bound to confess,Where civilisation went under;Had one of the gins beenlessmodest in dressHe’d never have made such a blunder.

And here let the moral be duly made known,And hereafter signed and attested:We should place more reliance on that which is shownAnd less upon what is suggested.

‘ASAILORnamed Grice was seen by the guard of a goods train lying close to the railway-line near Warner Town (S.A.) in a nude condition. He was unconscious, and had lain there three days, during one of which the glass registed 110 in the shade.Grice expressed surprise that the train did not pick him up.’—Daily paper. In consequence, the muse:—

Hewas bare—we don’t want to be rude—(His condition was owing to drink)They say his condition was nood,Which amounts to the same thing, we think(We mean hiscondition, we think,’Twas a naked condition, ornood,Which amounts to the same thing, we think)Uncovered he lay on the grassThat shrivelled and shrunk; and he stayedThree hot summer days, while the glassWas one hundred and ten in the shade.(We nearly remarked that helaid,But that was bad grammar we thought—Itdoessound bucolic, we thinkIt smacks of the barnyard—Of farming—ofpulletsin short.)Unheeded he lay on the dirt;Beside him a part of his dress,A tattered and threadbare old shirtWas raised as a flag of distress.(On a stick, like a flag of distress—Reversed—we mean that the tail-end was upHalf-mast—on a stick—an evident flag of distress.)Perhaps in his dreams he persoodBright visions of heav’nly bliss;And artists who study the noodNever saw such a study as this.The ‘luggage’ went by and the guardLooked out and his eyes fell on Grice—We fancy he looked at him hard,We think that he looked at him twice.They say (if the telegram’s true)When he woke up he wondered (good Lord!)‘Why the engine-man didn’t heave to—Why the train didn’t take him aboard.’And now, by the case of poor Grice,We think that a daily expressShould travel with sunshades and ice,And a lookout for flags of distress.

Uncovered he lay on the grassThat shrivelled and shrunk; and he stayedThree hot summer days, while the glassWas one hundred and ten in the shade.(We nearly remarked that helaid,But that was bad grammar we thought—Itdoessound bucolic, we thinkIt smacks of the barnyard—Of farming—ofpulletsin short.)

Unheeded he lay on the dirt;Beside him a part of his dress,A tattered and threadbare old shirtWas raised as a flag of distress.(On a stick, like a flag of distress—Reversed—we mean that the tail-end was upHalf-mast—on a stick—an evident flag of distress.)

Perhaps in his dreams he persoodBright visions of heav’nly bliss;And artists who study the noodNever saw such a study as this.The ‘luggage’ went by and the guardLooked out and his eyes fell on Grice—We fancy he looked at him hard,We think that he looked at him twice.

They say (if the telegram’s true)When he woke up he wondered (good Lord!)‘Why the engine-man didn’t heave to—Why the train didn’t take him aboard.’And now, by the case of poor Grice,We think that a daily expressShould travel with sunshades and ice,And a lookout for flags of distress.

Texas Jack, you are amusin’. By Lord Harry, how I laughedWhen I seen yer rig and saddle with its bulwarks fore-and-aft;Holy smoke! In such a saddle how the dickens can yer fall?Why, I seen a gal ride bareback with no bridle on at all!Gosh! so-help-me! strike-me-balmy! if a bit o’ sceneryLike ter you in all yer rig-out on the earth I ever see!How I’d like ter see a bushman use yer fixins, Texas Jack;On the remnant of a saddle he can ride to hell and back.Why, I heerd a mother screamin’ when her kid went tossin’ byRidin’ bareback on a bucker that had murder in his eye.What? yer come to learn the natives how to squat on horse’s back!Learn the cornstalk ridin’! Blazes!—w’at yer giv’n’ us, Texas Jack?Learn the cornstalk—what the flamin’, jumptup! where’s my country gone?Why, the cornstalk’s mother often rides the day afore he’s born!You may talk about your ridin’ in the city, bold an’ free,Talk o’ ridin’ in the city, Texas Jack, but where’d yer beWhen the stock horse snorts an’ bunches all ’is quarters in a hump,And the saddle climbs a sapling, an’ the horse-shoes split a stump?No, before yer teach the native you must ride without a fallUp a gum or down a gully nigh as steep as any wall—You must swim the roarin’ Darlin’ when the flood is at its heightBearin’ down the stock an’ stations to the great Australian Bight.You can’t count the bulls an’ bisons that yer copped with your lassoo—But a stout old myall bullock p’raps ’ud learn yer somethin’ new;Yer’d better make yer will an’ leave yer papers neat an’ trimBefore yer make arrangements for the lassooin’ ofhim;Ere you’n’ yer horse is catsmeat, fittin’ fate for sich galoots,And yer saddle’s turned to laces like we put in blucher boots.And yer say yer death on Injins! We’ve got somethin’ in yer line—If yer think your fitin’s ekal to the likes of Tommy Ryan.Take yer karkass up to Queensland where the allygators chewAnd the carpet-snake is handy with his tail for a lassoo;Ride across the hazy regins where the lonely emus wailAn’ ye’ll find the black’ll track yer while yer lookin’ for his trail;He can track yer without stoppin’ for a thousand miles or more—Come again, and he will show yer where yer spit the year before.But yer’d best be mighty careful, you’ll be sorry you kem hereWhen yer skewered to the fakements of yer saddle with a spear—When the boomerang is sailin’ in the air, may heaven help yer!It will cut yer head off goin’, an’ come back again and skelp yer.P.S.—As poet and as Yankee I will greet you, Texas Jack,For it isn’t no ill-feelin’ that is gettin’ up my back,But I won’t see this land crowded by each Yank and British cussWho takes it in his head to come a-civilisin’ us.So if you feel like shootin’ now, don’t let yer pistol cough—(Our Government is very free at chokin’ fellers off);And though on your great continent there’s misery in the townsAn’ not a few untitled lords and kings without their crowns,I will admit your countrymen is busted big, an’ free,An’ great on ekal rites of men and great on liberty;I will admit yer fathers punched the gory tyrant’s head,But then we’ve got our heroes, too, the diggers that is dead—The plucky men of Ballarat who toed the scratch right wellAnd broke the nose of Tyranny and made his peepers swellFor yankin’ Lib.’s gold tresses in the roarin’ days gone by,An’ doublin’ up his dirty fist to black her bonny eye;So when it comes to ridin’ mokes, or hoistin’ out the Chow,Or stickin’ up for labour’s rights, we don’t want showin’ how.They come to learn us cricket in the days of long ago,An’ Hanlan come from Canada to learn us how to row,An’ ‘doctors’ come from ’Frisco just to learn us how to skite,An’ ‘pugs’ from all the lands on earth to learn us how to fight;An’ when they go, as like or not, we find we’re taken in,They’ve left behind no larnin’—but they’ve carried off our tin.

What? yer come to learn the natives how to squat on horse’s back!Learn the cornstalk ridin’! Blazes!—w’at yer giv’n’ us, Texas Jack?Learn the cornstalk—what the flamin’, jumptup! where’s my country gone?Why, the cornstalk’s mother often rides the day afore he’s born!

You may talk about your ridin’ in the city, bold an’ free,Talk o’ ridin’ in the city, Texas Jack, but where’d yer beWhen the stock horse snorts an’ bunches all ’is quarters in a hump,And the saddle climbs a sapling, an’ the horse-shoes split a stump?

No, before yer teach the native you must ride without a fallUp a gum or down a gully nigh as steep as any wall—You must swim the roarin’ Darlin’ when the flood is at its heightBearin’ down the stock an’ stations to the great Australian Bight.

You can’t count the bulls an’ bisons that yer copped with your lassoo—But a stout old myall bullock p’raps ’ud learn yer somethin’ new;Yer’d better make yer will an’ leave yer papers neat an’ trimBefore yer make arrangements for the lassooin’ ofhim;Ere you’n’ yer horse is catsmeat, fittin’ fate for sich galoots,And yer saddle’s turned to laces like we put in blucher boots.

And yer say yer death on Injins! We’ve got somethin’ in yer line—If yer think your fitin’s ekal to the likes of Tommy Ryan.Take yer karkass up to Queensland where the allygators chewAnd the carpet-snake is handy with his tail for a lassoo;Ride across the hazy regins where the lonely emus wailAn’ ye’ll find the black’ll track yer while yer lookin’ for his trail;He can track yer without stoppin’ for a thousand miles or more—Come again, and he will show yer where yer spit the year before.But yer’d best be mighty careful, you’ll be sorry you kem hereWhen yer skewered to the fakements of yer saddle with a spear—When the boomerang is sailin’ in the air, may heaven help yer!It will cut yer head off goin’, an’ come back again and skelp yer.

P.S.—As poet and as Yankee I will greet you, Texas Jack,For it isn’t no ill-feelin’ that is gettin’ up my back,But I won’t see this land crowded by each Yank and British cussWho takes it in his head to come a-civilisin’ us.

So if you feel like shootin’ now, don’t let yer pistol cough—(Our Government is very free at chokin’ fellers off);And though on your great continent there’s misery in the townsAn’ not a few untitled lords and kings without their crowns,I will admit your countrymen is busted big, an’ free,An’ great on ekal rites of men and great on liberty;I will admit yer fathers punched the gory tyrant’s head,But then we’ve got our heroes, too, the diggers that is dead—The plucky men of Ballarat who toed the scratch right wellAnd broke the nose of Tyranny and made his peepers swellFor yankin’ Lib.’s gold tresses in the roarin’ days gone by,An’ doublin’ up his dirty fist to black her bonny eye;So when it comes to ridin’ mokes, or hoistin’ out the Chow,Or stickin’ up for labour’s rights, we don’t want showin’ how.

They come to learn us cricket in the days of long ago,An’ Hanlan come from Canada to learn us how to row,An’ ‘doctors’ come from ’Frisco just to learn us how to skite,An’ ‘pugs’ from all the lands on earth to learn us how to fight;An’ when they go, as like or not, we find we’re taken in,They’ve left behind no larnin’—but they’ve carried off our tin.

’Twixt the coastline and the border lay the town of Grog-an’-GrumbleIn the days before the bushman was a dull ’n’ heartless drudge,An’ they say the local meeting was a drunken rough-and-tumble,Which was ended pretty often by an inquest on the judge.An’ ’tis said the city talent very often caught a tartarIn the Grog-an’-Grumble sportsman, ’n’ retired with broken heads,For the fortune, life, and safety of the Grog-an’-Grumble starterMostly hung upon the finish of the local thoroughbreds.Pat M‘Durmer was the owner of a horse they called the Screamer,Which he called the ‘quickest shtepper ’twixt the Darling and the sea;’And I think it’s very doubtful if the stomach-troubled dreamerEver saw a more outrageous piece of equine scenery;For his points were most decided, from his end to his beginning,He had eyes of different colour, and his legs they wasn’t mates.Pat M‘Durmer said he always came ‘widin a flip av winnin’,’An’ his sire had come from England, ’n’ his dam was from the States.Friends would argue with M‘Durmer, and they said he was in errorTo put up his horse the Screamer, for he’d lose in any case,And they said a city racer by the name of Holy TerrorWas regarded as the winner of the coming steeplechase;But he said he had the knowledge to come in when it was raining,And irrelevantly mentioned that he knew the time of day,So he rose in their opinion. It was noticed that the trainingOf the Screamer was conducted in a dark, mysterious way.Well, the day arrived in glory; ’twas a day of jubilationWith careless-hearted bushmen for a hundred miles around,An’ the rum ’n’ beer ’n’ whisky came in waggons from the station,An’ the Holy Terror talent were the first upon the ground.Judge M‘Ard—with whose opinion it was scarcely safe to wrestle—Took his dangerous position on the bark-and-sapling stand:He was what the local Stiggins used to speak of as a ‘wessel‘Of wrath,’ and he’d a bludgeon that he carried in his hand.‘Off ye go!’ the starter shouted, as down fell a stupid jockey—Off they started in disorder—left the jockey where he lay—And they fell and rolled and galloped down the crooked course and rocky,Till the pumping of the Screamer could be heard a mile away.But he kept his legs and galloped; he was used to rugged courses,And he lumbered down the gully till the ridge began to quake:And he ploughed along the siding, raising earth till other horsesAn’ their riders, too, were blinded by the dust-cloud in his wake.From the ruck he’d struggled slowly—they were much surprised to find himClose abeam of Holy Terror as along the flat they tore—Even higher still and denser rose the cloud of dust behind him,While in more divided splinters flew the shattered rails before.‘Terror!’ ‘Dead heat!’ they were shouting—‘Terror!’ but the Screamer hung outNose to nose with Holy Terror as across the creek they swung,An’ M‘Durmer shouted loudly, ‘Put yer tongue out! put yer tongue out!’An’ the Screamer put his tongue out, and he won by half-a-tongue.

Pat M‘Durmer was the owner of a horse they called the Screamer,Which he called the ‘quickest shtepper ’twixt the Darling and the sea;’And I think it’s very doubtful if the stomach-troubled dreamerEver saw a more outrageous piece of equine scenery;For his points were most decided, from his end to his beginning,He had eyes of different colour, and his legs they wasn’t mates.Pat M‘Durmer said he always came ‘widin a flip av winnin’,’An’ his sire had come from England, ’n’ his dam was from the States.

Friends would argue with M‘Durmer, and they said he was in errorTo put up his horse the Screamer, for he’d lose in any case,And they said a city racer by the name of Holy TerrorWas regarded as the winner of the coming steeplechase;But he said he had the knowledge to come in when it was raining,And irrelevantly mentioned that he knew the time of day,So he rose in their opinion. It was noticed that the trainingOf the Screamer was conducted in a dark, mysterious way.

Well, the day arrived in glory; ’twas a day of jubilationWith careless-hearted bushmen for a hundred miles around,An’ the rum ’n’ beer ’n’ whisky came in waggons from the station,An’ the Holy Terror talent were the first upon the ground.Judge M‘Ard—with whose opinion it was scarcely safe to wrestle—Took his dangerous position on the bark-and-sapling stand:He was what the local Stiggins used to speak of as a ‘wessel‘Of wrath,’ and he’d a bludgeon that he carried in his hand.

‘Off ye go!’ the starter shouted, as down fell a stupid jockey—Off they started in disorder—left the jockey where he lay—And they fell and rolled and galloped down the crooked course and rocky,Till the pumping of the Screamer could be heard a mile away.But he kept his legs and galloped; he was used to rugged courses,And he lumbered down the gully till the ridge began to quake:And he ploughed along the siding, raising earth till other horsesAn’ their riders, too, were blinded by the dust-cloud in his wake.

From the ruck he’d struggled slowly—they were much surprised to find himClose abeam of Holy Terror as along the flat they tore—Even higher still and denser rose the cloud of dust behind him,While in more divided splinters flew the shattered rails before.‘Terror!’ ‘Dead heat!’ they were shouting—‘Terror!’ but the Screamer hung outNose to nose with Holy Terror as across the creek they swung,An’ M‘Durmer shouted loudly, ‘Put yer tongue out! put yer tongue out!’An’ the Screamer put his tongue out, and he won by half-a-tongue.

Butwhat’s the use of writing ‘bush’—Though editors demand it—For city folk, and farming folk,Can never understand it.They’re blind to what the bushman seesThe best with eyes shut tightest,Out where the sun is hottest andThe stars are most and brightest.The crows at sunrise flopping roundWhere some poor life has run down;The pair of emus trotting fromThe lonely tank at sundown,Their snaky heads well up, and eyesWell out for man’s manœuvres,And feathers bobbing round behindLike fringes round improvers.The swagman tramping ’cross the plain;Good Lord, there’s nothing sadder,Except the dog that slopes behindHis master like a shadder;The turkey-tail to scare the flies,The water-bag and billy;The nose-bag getting cruel light,The traveller getting silly.The plain that seems to JackaroosLike gently sloping rises,The shrubs and tufts that’s miles awayBut magnified in sizes;The track that seems arisen upOr else seems gently slopin’,And just a hint of kangaroosWay out across the open.The joy and hope the swagman feelsReturning, after shearing,Or after six months’ tramp Out Back,He strikes the final clearing.His weary spirit breathes again,His aching legs seem limberWhen to the East across the plainHe spots the Darling Timber!But what’s the use of writing ‘bush’—Though editors demand it—For city folk and cockatoos,They do not understand it.They’re blind to what the whaler seesThe best with eyes shut tightest,Out where Australia’s widest, andThe stars are most and brightest.

The crows at sunrise flopping roundWhere some poor life has run down;The pair of emus trotting fromThe lonely tank at sundown,Their snaky heads well up, and eyesWell out for man’s manœuvres,And feathers bobbing round behindLike fringes round improvers.

The swagman tramping ’cross the plain;Good Lord, there’s nothing sadder,Except the dog that slopes behindHis master like a shadder;The turkey-tail to scare the flies,The water-bag and billy;The nose-bag getting cruel light,The traveller getting silly.

The plain that seems to JackaroosLike gently sloping rises,The shrubs and tufts that’s miles awayBut magnified in sizes;The track that seems arisen upOr else seems gently slopin’,And just a hint of kangaroosWay out across the open.

The joy and hope the swagman feelsReturning, after shearing,Or after six months’ tramp Out Back,He strikes the final clearing.His weary spirit breathes again,His aching legs seem limberWhen to the East across the plainHe spots the Darling Timber!

But what’s the use of writing ‘bush’—Though editors demand it—For city folk and cockatoos,They do not understand it.They’re blind to what the whaler seesThe best with eyes shut tightest,Out where Australia’s widest, andThe stars are most and brightest.

MAY, 1902.

LIST OF BOOKSPUBLISHED BYANGUS & ROBERTSON89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY205 SWANSTON STREET, MELBOURNESOLD IN ENGLAND BYTHE AUSTRALIAN BOOK COMPANY38 WEST SMITHFIELD, LONDON, E.C.

THE COMMONWEALTH SERIES

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JOE WILSON AND HIS MATES.

BY HENRY LAWSON, Author of “While the Billy Boils;” “When the World was Wide and Other Verses;” “Verses, Popular and Humorous;” “On the Track and Over the Sliprails.”Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (post free 4s.), in paper covers, 2s. 6d. (post free 3s.).

BY HENRY LAWSON, Author of “While the Billy Boils;” “When the World was Wide and Other Verses;” “Verses, Popular and Humorous;” “On the Track and Over the Sliprails.”

Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (post free 4s.), in paper covers, 2s. 6d. (post free 3s.).

The Athenæum(London): “This is a long way the best work Mr. Lawson has yet given us. These stories are so good that (from the literary point of view, of course) one hopes they are not autobiographical. As autobiography they would be good; as pure fiction they are more of an attainment.”

Pall Mall Gazette:“We can see in these rough diamonds the men who have of late so distinguished themselves at Eland’s River and elsewhere.”

The Argus:“More tales of the Joe Wilson series are promised, and this will be gratifying to Mr. Lawson’s admirers, for on the whole the sketches are the best work the writer has so far accomplished.”

The Academy:—“I have never read anything in modern English literature that is so absolutely democratic in tone, so much the real thing, asJoe Wilson’s Courtship. And so with all Lawson’s tales and sketches. Tolstoy and Howells, and Whitman and Kipling, and Zola and Hauptmann and Gorky have all written descriptions of ‘democratic’ life; but none of these celebrated authors, not even Maupassant himself, has so absolutely taken us inside the life as do the talesJoe Wilson’s CourtshipandA Double Buggy at Lahey’s Creek, and it is this rare convincing tone of this Australian writer that gives him a great value. The most casual ‘newspapery’ and apparently artless art of this Australian writer carries with it a truer, finer, more delicate commentary on life than all the idealistic works of any of our genteel school of writers.”

VERSES: POPULAR AND HUMOROUS.

By HENRY LAWSON, Author of “When the World was Wide, and Other Verses,” “Joe Wilson and His Mates,” “On the Track and Over the Sliprails,” and “While the Billy Boils.”

Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (post free 4s.).

For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2.

Francis Thompson, inThe Daily Chronicle: “He is a writer of strong and ringing ballad verse, who gets his blows straight in, and at his best makes them all tell. He can vignette the life he knows in a few touches, and in this book shows an increased power of selection.”

Academy: “Mr. Lawson’s work should be well known to our readers; for we have urged them often enough to make acquaintance with it. He has the gift of movement, and he rarely offers a loose rhyme. Technically, short of anxious lapidary work, these verses are excellent. He varies sentiment and humour very agreeably.”

New York Evening Journal: “Such pride as a man feels when he has true greatness as his guest, this newspaper feels in introducing to a million readers a man of ability hitherto unknown to them. Henry Lawson is his name.”

The Book Lover: “Any book of Lawson’s should be bought and treasured by all who care for the real beginnings of Australian literature. As a matter of fact, he is the one Australian literary product, in any distinctive sense.”

ON THE TRACK AND OVER THE SLIPRAILS.

Stories byHENRY LAWSON, Author of “While the Billy Boils,” “Joe Wilson and his Mates,” “When the World Was Wide and Other Verses,” and “Verses, Popular and Humorous.”

Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (post free 4s.).

For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2.

Daily Chronicle: “Will well sustain the reputation its author has already won as the best writer of Australian short stories and sketches the literary world knows. Henry Lawson has the art, possessed in such eminent degree by Mr. J. M. Barrie, of sketching in a character and suggesting a whole life-story in a single sentence.”

Pall Mall Gazette: “The volume now received will do much to enhance the author’s reputation. There is all the quiet irresistible humour of Dickens in the description of ‘The Darling River,’ and the creator of ‘Truthful James’ never did anything better in the way of character sketches than Steelman and Mitchell. Mr. Lawson has a master’s sense of what is dramatic, and he can bring out strong effects in a few touches. Humour and pathos, comedy and tragedy, are equally at his command.”

Glasgow Herald: “Mr. Lawson must now be regarded asfacile princepsin the production of the short tale. Some of these brief and even slight sketches are veritable gems that would be spoiled by an added word, and without a word that can be looked upon as superfluous.”

Melbourne Punch: “Often the little stories are wedges cut clean out of life, and presented with artistic truth and vivid colour.”

WHILE THE BILLY BOILS.

Stories byHENRY LAWSON, Author of “When the World Was Wide and Other Verses,” “Joe Wilson and his Mates,” “On the Track and Over the Sliprails,” and “Verses, Popular and Humorous.”Twenty-third Thousand. With eight plates and vignette title by F. P. Mahony. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (post free 4s.).

Stories byHENRY LAWSON, Author of “When the World Was Wide and Other Verses,” “Joe Wilson and his Mates,” “On the Track and Over the Sliprails,” and “Verses, Popular and Humorous.”

Twenty-third Thousand. With eight plates and vignette title by F. P. Mahony. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (post free 4s.).

For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2.

The Academy: “A book of honest, direct, sympathetic, humorous writing about Australia from within is worth a library of travellers’ tales.... The result is a real book—a book in a hundred. His language is terse, supple, and richly idiomatic. He can tell a yarn with the best.”

Literature: “A book which Mrs. Campbell Praed assured me made her feel that all she had written of bush life was pale and ineffective.”

The Spectator: “It is strange that one we would venture to call the greatest Australian writer should be practically unknown in England. Mr. Lawson is a less experienced writer than Mr. Kipling, and more unequal, but there are two or three sketches in this volume which for vigour and truth can hold their own with even so great a rival.”

The Times: “A collection of short and vigorous studies and stories of Australian life and character. A little in Bret Harte’s manner, crossed, perhaps, with that of Guy de Maupassant.”

The Scotsman: “There is no lack of dramatic imagination in the construction of the tales; and the best of them contrive to construct a strong sensational situation in a couple of pages.”

WHEN THE WORLD WAS WIDE AND OTHER VERSES.

ByHENRY LAWSON, Author of “While the Billy Boils,” “Joe Wilson and his Mates,” “On the Track and Over the Sliprails,” and “Verses, Popular and Humorous.”Tenth Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (post free 5s. 5d.).

ByHENRY LAWSON, Author of “While the Billy Boils,” “Joe Wilson and his Mates,” “On the Track and Over the Sliprails,” and “Verses, Popular and Humorous.”

Tenth Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (post free 5s. 5d.).

Presentation edition, French Morocco, gilt edges, 9s.

The Academy: “These ballads (for such they mostly are) abound in spirit and manhood, in the colour and smell of Australian soil. They deserve the popularity which they have won in Australia, and which, we trust, this edition will now give them in England.”

Mr. R. Le Gallienne, in The Idler: “A striking volume of ballad poetry. A volume to console one for the tantalising postponement of Mr. Kipling’s promised volume of sea ballads.”

Newcastle Weekly Chronicle: “Swinging, rhythmic verse.”

Sydney Morning Herald: “The verses have natural vigour, the writer has a rough, true faculty of characterisation, and the book is racy of the soil from cover to cover.”

Bulletin: “How graphic he is, how natural, how true, how strong.”

Otago Witness: “It were well to have such books upon our shelves.... They are true history.”

THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER AND OTHER VERSES.

ByA. B. PATERSON.Twenty-Fourth Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (post free 5s. 5d.).

ByA. B. PATERSON.

Twenty-Fourth Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (post free 5s. 5d.).

Presentation edition, French Morocco, gilt edges, 9s.

The Literary Year Book: “The immediate success of this book of bush ballads is without parallel in Colonial literary annals, nor can any living English or American poet boast so wide a public, always excepting Mr. Rudyard Kipling.”

The Times: “At his best he compares not unfavourably with the author of ‘Barrack Room Ballads.’ ”

Spectator: “These lines have the true lyrical cry in them. Eloquent and ardent verses.”

Athenæum: “Swinging, rattling ballads of ready humour, ready pathos, and crowding adventure.... Stirring and entertaining ballads about great rides, in which the lines gallop like the very hoofs of the horses.”

Mr.A. Patchett Martin, inLiterature(London): “In my opinion it is the absolutely un-English, thoroughly Australian style and character of these new bush bards which has given them such immediate popularity, such wide vogue, among all classes of the rising native generation.”

London: Macmillan & Co., Limited.

THE POETICAL WORKS OF BRUNTON STEPHENS.

New edition, with photogravure portrait. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s.

Sydney Morning Herald (N.S.W.): “ ‘The Poetical Works of Brunton Stephens,’ as now published by Messrs. Angus and Robertson, is a book which every Australian should have on his bookshelves, whether these bookshelves cover walls or are merely the small collection which the man of taste, however shrunken his purse, is bound to make. Brunton Stephens deserves his place in even the smallest of collections. The chief of Australian poets he has contributed to English literature work of distinguished merit. He is many-sided, embracing all sorts and conditions of men and things.”

The Melbourne Argus: “Mr. Brunton Stephens has for some years enjoyed an established reputation as one of the best among the small and select cluster of Australian poets.... Mr. Stephens is specially favoured, in that he not only has at command a vein of true pathos, but he has moments of real humour. In more than one poem, too, he has made good his right to be regarded as the poet of brotherhood and the prophet of federation.”

The Melbourne Age: “It is certainly one of the happiest of his efforts, and exhibits alike his copious vocabulary and his mastery of a most attractive form of metre.... A poet both in thought and feeling.”

Newcastle (N.S.W.) Morning Herald: “Of the rapidly lengthening roll of Australian writers, none deserves a higher place than Brunton Stephens. For more than a generation he has charmed his countrymen with his exquisite verse.”

RHYMES FROM THE MINES AND OTHER LINES.

ByEDWARD DYSON, Author of “A Golden Shanty.”Second Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (post free, 5s. 5d.).

ByEDWARD DYSON, Author of “A Golden Shanty.”

Second Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (post free, 5s. 5d.).

Presentation edition, French Morocco, gilt edges, 9s.

The Academy: “Here from within we have the Australian miner complete: the young miner, the old miner, the miner in luck, and the miner out of it, the miner in love, and the miner in peril. Mr. Dyson knows it all.”

THE MUTINEER. A Romance of Pitcairn Island. By LOUIS BECKEANDWALTER JEFFERY.

Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (post free 4s.).

FOR THE TERM OF HIS NATURAL LIFE.

By MARCUS CLARKE.With a Memoir of the Author, byA. B. Paterson, Portrait of the Author, Map of Eagle Hawk Neck and the vicinity, and 14 full-page views of places mentioned in the book. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 3s. 6d. (post free 4s.).

By MARCUS CLARKE.

With a Memoir of the Author, byA. B. Paterson, Portrait of the Author, Map of Eagle Hawk Neck and the vicinity, and 14 full-page views of places mentioned in the book. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 3s. 6d. (post free 4s.).

LOVE AND LONGITUDE.

A Story of the Pacific in the Year 1900.ByR. SCOT SKIRVING.With 8 plates, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (post free 5s. 6d.).

A Story of the Pacific in the Year 1900.

ByR. SCOT SKIRVING.

With 8 plates, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (post free 5s. 6d.).

Daily Telegraph: “A capital story of love and adventure in the Pacific.... Seafaring folk will find much to interest them particularly in ‘Love and Longitude,’ and general readers will admire it for its bright narrative.”

OUR ARMY IN SOUTH AFRICA.

By R. SCOT SKIRVING, late Consulting Surgeon to the Australian Contingents.Crown 8vo, boards, 2s. (post free 2s. 2d.).

By R. SCOT SKIRVING, late Consulting Surgeon to the Australian Contingents.

Crown 8vo, boards, 2s. (post free 2s. 2d.).

THE SPIRIT OF THE BUSH FIRE AND OTHER AUSTRALIAN FAIRY TALES.ByJ. M. WHITFELD.

Second Thousand. With 32 illustrations by G. W. Lambert. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. (post free 3s.).

Sydney Morning Herald: “It is frankly written for the young folks. The youngster will find a delight in Miss Whitfeld’s marvellous company.”

TEENS. A Story of Australian Schoolgirls.

ByLOUISE MACK.Fourth Thousand. With 14 full-page illustrations by F. P. Mahony. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.

ByLOUISE MACK.

Fourth Thousand. With 14 full-page illustrations by F. P. Mahony. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.

Sydney Morning Herald: “Ought to be welcome to all who feel the responsibility of choosing the reading books of the young ... its gaiety, impulsiveness, and youthfulness will charm them.”

Sydney Daily Telegraph: “Nothing could be more natural, more sympathetic.”

The Australasian: “ ‘Teens’ is a pleasantly-written story, very suitable for a present or a school prize.”

Bulletin: “It is written so well that it could not be written better.”

GIRLS TOGETHER.

A Sequel to “Teens.”ByLOUISE MACK.

Third Thousand. Illustrated by G. W. Lambert. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.

Sydney Morning Herald: “ ‘Girls Together’ should be in the library of every girl who likes a pleasant story of real life.... Older people will read it for its bright touches of human nature.”

Queenslander: “A story told in a dainty style that makes it attractive to all. It is fresh, bright, and cheery, and well worth a place on any Australian bookshelf.”

THE ANNOTATED CONSTITUTION OF THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH.

By Sir JOHN QUICKANDR. R. GARRAN, C.M.G.Royal 8vo, cloth gilt, 21s.

By Sir JOHN QUICKANDR. R. GARRAN, C.M.G.

Royal 8vo, cloth gilt, 21s.

The Times: “The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth is a monument of industry.... Dr. Quick and Mr. Garran have collected, with patience and enthusiasm, every sort of information, legal and historical, which can throw light on the new measure. The book has evidently been a labour of love.”

HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGING.ByCHARLES WHITE.

To be completed in two vols. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. each. [Vol. I. now ready.

For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2.

Press Notices of Volume I.

Year Book of Australia: “There is ‘romance’ enough about it to make it of permanent interest as a peculiar and most remarkable stage in our social history.”

Queenslander: “Mr. White has supplied material enough for twenty such novels as ‘Robbery Under Arms.”

THE GROWTH OF THE EMPIRE.

A Handbook to the History of Greater Britain.

By Arthur W. JOSE, Author of “A Short History of Australasia.”Second Edition. With 14 Maps. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 5s. (post free 5s. 6d.)

By Arthur W. JOSE, Author of “A Short History of Australasia.”

Second Edition. With 14 Maps. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 5s. (post free 5s. 6d.)

Morning Post: “This book is published in Sydney, but it deserves to be circulated throughout the United Kingdom. The picture of the fashion in which British enterprise made its way from settlement to settlement has never been drawn more vividly than in these pages. Mr. Jose’s style is crisp and pleasant, now and then even rising to eloquence on his grand theme. His book deserves wide popularity, and it has the rare merit of being so written as to be attractive alike to the young student and to the mature man of letters.”

Literature: “He has studied thoroughly, and writes vigorously.... Admirably done.... We commend it to Britons the world over.”

Saturday Review: “He writes Imperially; he also often writes sympathetically.... We cannot close Mr. Jose’s creditable account of our misdoings without a glow of national pride.”

Yorkshire Post: “A brighter short history we do not know, and this book deserves for the matter and the manner of it to be as well known as Mr. McCarthy’s ‘History of Our Own Times.’ ”

The Scotsman: “This admirable work is a solid octavo of more than 400 pages. It is a thoughtful, well-written, and well-arranged history. There are fourteen excellent maps to illustrate the text.”

HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA.

From the Earliest Times to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth.

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