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Kill a Kanga , mate!
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First published in London in 1896, this battered Australian adventure book for boys highlights the thrill , the feeling of achievement you get when you kill your first kangaroo . In colonial Sydney , 18 year old Dick Morrison ( not thought to be related to the new PM ) receives a letter from a country cousin inviting him and a schoolmate to visit a sheep station , Cooagalong, near Condobolin, NSW, at Christmas to experience life in the bush .
Dick , only son of a wealthy ship owner , a bright student at Sydney Grammar, intends to go to university and become a doctor . His older sister , Jenny , one is told , is a fine specimen of the fair Australian , tall and graceful, a beauty , with a sweet and gentle manner .
There is not a trace of the fast and loud , and often slangy-in-speech manner of the average modern young Australian in Jenny . Set an example by her mother and through reading , Jenny appears to have always had a natural repugnance to anything not refined or in good taste.
While proficient in French and Italian , Dick cannot handle German and does not like the German master , Dr Wieber , a taskmaster , who rants and raves at students , "curses and swears like a trooper". Sydney Grammar !!!!
He even called a student a thick headed , gum-sucker and long-shanked cornstalk ! That student got red in the face, called Dr Wieber Mr Sauerkraut , and warned that if he continued to harangue the chaps , they would walk out, not prepared to be insulted by any German lager-beer barrel . You don't get fullblooded exchanges like this in the modern classroom under NAPLAN .
Dick's plan to take Alf Jones, the best cricketer, footballer and junior oarsman at school , with him at Christmas comes unstuck , so he invites Tom Flood , also intent on becoming a medico , who had not been much out of Sydney , green as a leek as far as the country , especially station life .
Tom is advised to bring a broad brimmed straw hat , Crimean shirts, and a good gun with about 300 cartridges . Dick intends to take a rifle for long range shooting and there is need for a breech-loaded shotgun , providing them with good sport .
The school year ends with a talk by the governor and his wife , she being of the British aristocracy , able to ride a horse at full gallop . The action packed novel moves to Cooagalong , where cooee is heard from time to time .
Another visitor there is the son of a rich Glasgow merchant, Archie McTavish , who thinks he is great rider, lively , jolly, fearless, who has come out from the Old Country to experience Colonial life ; he and Dick team up .
To cut a long and fascinating story short , there is an encounter with bushrangers during which shots are fired , some riddling an old painting of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots . At some stage McTavish is held prisoner by the bushrangers who issue a ransom note for 300 gold sovereigns for his release.
When recued by police , he offers to give the ransom money to them . They refuse , saying it is not allowed by regulations , but their superior officer over rules them so that they end up with a bag of sovs each .
Then Dick and McTavish take part in a wild kangaroo hunt . They are advised that you can bring down a kangaroo by riding after it on horseback and bashing it on the head with a waddy , a cudgel . An experienced kangaroo killer, an old stockman, outlines another method -loading the handle of a stockwhip with lead , turning it into a handy weapon , both a club and a strangling device. For this advice and use of his whip, Dick "buttered the palm of the stockman with a bright half sovereign" .
In the dramatic chase with dogs after fleeing kangaroos , McTavish , armed with no less a weapon than a Bowie knife , pursues an old man , 7ft roo , which raced into water , turned on him and threatened the life of the hunter ,who was trying to slash his throat with the blade, by dragging him underwater .
Dick, with his stockwhip , dashed in, bashed the roo on the head several times and saved the day. The roo sank like a stone; Dick then grabbed the tail of the marsupial , dragged it out of the water, laid it out on the shore . Pulling out his penknife, he then scalped the roo , and held the bloody souvenir high , below , as others rode up, shouted triumphantly : " My first Kangaroo , Maggie!" , she being his cousin .
To cut a long and fascinating story short , there is an encounter with bushrangers during which shots are fired , some riddling an old painting of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots . At some stage McTavish is held prisoner by the bushrangers who issue a ransom note for 300 gold sovereigns for his release.
When recued by police , he offers to give the ransom money to them . They refuse , saying it is not allowed by regulations , but their superior officer over rules them so that they end up with a bag of sovs each .
Then Dick and McTavish take part in a wild kangaroo hunt . They are advised that you can bring down a kangaroo by riding after it on horseback and bashing it on the head with a waddy , a cudgel . An experienced kangaroo killer, an old stockman, outlines another method -loading the handle of a stockwhip with lead , turning it into a handy weapon , both a club and a strangling device. For this advice and use of his whip, Dick "buttered the palm of the stockman with a bright half sovereign" .
In the dramatic chase with dogs after fleeing kangaroos , McTavish , armed with no less a weapon than a Bowie knife , pursues an old man , 7ft roo , which raced into water , turned on him and threatened the life of the hunter ,who was trying to slash his throat with the blade, by dragging him underwater .
Dick, with his stockwhip , dashed in, bashed the roo on the head several times and saved the day. The roo sank like a stone; Dick then grabbed the tail of the marsupial , dragged it out of the water, laid it out on the shore . Pulling out his penknife, he then scalped the roo , and held the bloody souvenir high , below , as others rode up, shouted triumphantly : " My first Kangaroo , Maggie!" , she being his cousin .
The author , Arthur Ferres, was John William Kevin, born Derry , Northern Ireland , in 1843, a school inspector in Australia , involved in the school library movement, wrote and edited selections of poetry for children , died in NSW in 1903.
The book's illustrations were by Percy Frederick Seaton Spence (1868-1933), born December 14, 1868 at Balmain, Sydney. He was one of seven children of English parents Francis Spence, civil servant, and his wife Hannah, née Turnbull, (not believed to be related to the former Prime Minister) .
His father held a government appointment in Fiji where Percy spent his youth and began painting watercolours. In Sydney he worked as an illustrator at the Daily Telegraph ,Illustrated Sydney News and the Bulletin . Through his art, he became an original member of the Brush Club, a group founded by D. H. Souter , affiliated with the Art Society of NSW .
A painting of his ,The Ploughman, was bought by the National Gallery of NSW and hung in the 1893 Chicago Exposition . Robert Louis Stevenson was the subject of two portraits done in Sydney in 1893 , one now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. In England he contributed to many publications, became a member of the Chelsea Art Club, was commissioned to do portraits , some of his works ending up in Buckingham Palace. During World War l he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Portraits of his are held in the Mitchell Library , Sydney , the High Court, Canberra and elsewhere in Australia . An early owner of this book, in Brisbane , is believed to have had Scottish ancestors .
The 288pp story has something of a Mills and Boon ending with three marriages all due to that adventure at Cooagalong. The book includes a 32page illustrated catalogue of books for young people .Our copy found at a North Queensland garage sale .
The book's illustrations were by Percy Frederick Seaton Spence (1868-1933), born December 14, 1868 at Balmain, Sydney. He was one of seven children of English parents Francis Spence, civil servant, and his wife Hannah, née Turnbull, (not believed to be related to the former Prime Minister) .
His father held a government appointment in Fiji where Percy spent his youth and began painting watercolours. In Sydney he worked as an illustrator at the Daily Telegraph ,Illustrated Sydney News and the Bulletin . Through his art, he became an original member of the Brush Club, a group founded by D. H. Souter , affiliated with the Art Society of NSW .
A painting of his ,The Ploughman, was bought by the National Gallery of NSW and hung in the 1893 Chicago Exposition . Robert Louis Stevenson was the subject of two portraits done in Sydney in 1893 , one now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. In England he contributed to many publications, became a member of the Chelsea Art Club, was commissioned to do portraits , some of his works ending up in Buckingham Palace. During World War l he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Portraits of his are held in the Mitchell Library , Sydney , the High Court, Canberra and elsewhere in Australia . An early owner of this book, in Brisbane , is believed to have had Scottish ancestors .
The 288pp story has something of a Mills and Boon ending with three marriages all due to that adventure at Cooagalong. The book includes a 32page illustrated catalogue of books for young people .Our copy found at a North Queensland garage sale .
