The Days of a Man 1:1907 



Their- 2L " racy, irreverent" weekly journal edited with un- 

 reverent ^g^^j ability, but cynical in the extreme and pur- 

 "SSm" posely serving as a wet blanket on enthusiasm and 

 everything which bears an idealistic guise. It thus 

 promotes that form of pessimism which regards all 

 effort at social betterment — education, pacifism, 

 temperance, religion — as founded essentially on 

 hypocrisy. It is, moreover, an exponent of militarism 

 and chief mouthpiece of the fatuous Japanese scare 

 which made universal military training possible. On 

 the other hand, it has consistently encouraged the 

 writing of good verse, and many of the best short 

 poems produced in Australia, those of Henry Lawson 

 and Andrew B. Paterson especially, have first ap- 

 peared in its pages. It also makes a specialty of clever 

 cartoons, with a few of which it honored my mission. 

 In the smartest of them I appeared as "The New 

 Bunthorne" surrounded by a bevy of kneeling 

 ladies — a reference to my address at a Women's Club 

 on the Suffrage Movement in America. 



In Bertram Stevens' "Anthology of Australian 

 Verse "^ I find many sparkling lyrics, most of which 

 might have been written in Piccadilly; but some, not- 

 ably those of Lawson and Paterson, have the tang of the 

 soil. From such as these I may perhaps further quote. 



The wind is in the badey-grass, 



The wattles are in bloom; 

 The breezes greet us as they pass 



With honey-sweet perfume; 

 The parrakeets go screaming by 



With flash of golden wing, 

 And from the swamp the wild-ducks cry 

 Their long-drawn note of revelry, 



Rejoicing at the Spring. 



^ Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1905. 



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