Page 7 Advertisements Column 2

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 214, 9 September 1891, Page 7

the :b:l_a_q:k: ipoijloje ; A STORY OP MODERN AUSTRALIA.

" Daily Graphic," March x"J, 1891. " Lytteltoa Times." " Christehurch Telegraph," May 19. •'lf the book were nofc written-with so " 'The Black Police.'—Can it be possible "No Australian writer who is now much circumstantial detail we would that in these days of grace—for the story is wielding the pen in London or the Colonies willingly believe that something had been written of the present time—that such has been so successful in the choice of a sacrificed to sensation. It is hard to realise things, such horrors, as Mr. Vogan describes theme as a New Zealander who has recently that the wholesale massacres of blacks— with revolting relish, can happen in a found a London publisher—we mean Mr. men, women, and children—here described, civilised British community ?" Arthur James Vogan. . . . The book are wholly accurate, or that licenses are is undoubtedly written with a purpose. Its? granted to men to shoot ' Myalls' (wild leading idea is to illustrate the manner in blacks) on sight; or even that a native which the Australian blacks are shot down 'boy'can be bought in Queensland towns "Christchurch Press." by tn e squatters, especially in the back for a sovereign or two. Mr. Vogan, dating «,mi t>, , t>t • t*- i „ nil districts of Queensland. The author, in from New Zealand, states that 'the scenes " ' The Black Police. -It only one-third the brief preface to hig readerSj say .j q.:kl main incidents employed are chiefly the f. the scenes deleted in the book by Mr have ent i ea voured to depict some bf the result of my personal observations and Vogan are true, it is time such a reproach obscurer portions of Australia's sludow life, experiences; the remainder are from per- was wl P ed oft th . c fair fame of Australia. The scenes and main incidents employed fectly reliable sources.' " • • • Son f . of , the scenes are painted are chiefly the result of my personal obserwith a good deal of power. The discovery vations aud exper j enceß * £ he remain(ier "Daily Chronicle," April 15,1891. "J Claude Angland of the rival to Mount from perfectly r< liable sources. . The writer Morgan is a wonderfully clever piece ofl word gives a brief sla teh of Auckland city, and "To several colonial stories which have painting; the scenery and the weird sur- then transports his her jto Queensland for recently been published must now be added roundings of the cavern being described the purpose of Wing out the last resting•The Black Police; a Story of Modern very powerfully. . . . 'The Black place of his uncle, an explorer, and also to /ustraha,' by A. J. Vogan (London, Police' is well worth perusal. discover, by means of a last letter from him, Hutchinson & Co.). It is an attempt to a famous gold mine. This quest brings him depict some of the obscurer portions of into contact with the squatter iif e of the Australia's shady side, and the scenes and outlying district of Queensland, and also mam incidents employed are chiefly the "Otago Times," June 6, IS9I. makes Mm an eye witness of the brutal result of personal observations and expen- manner in which the black population are £3S»-» StOry " Un * UesWbl y Tom?CabS' oTQueensCfnd and tt being annihilated in the interest of civilisaeCl °- horrors in Mrs. Stowe's book are hardly on and , wealth. If we are to believe Mr. "London Morning Advertiser," more horrible than the facts recorded here, vogan, the blacks of the colony of QueensLoncton mornjner ziaverwse , knd &m ]y hot d june iv. ran. . g . n Au^l4nd when the story beginSj remorse but evidently with a degree of " Mr. Vogan presents us with one of the receives the last message of an uncle who g iee by both native policemen and settlers, strongest and sternest indictments of the has died while exploring the Australian One of the chief instruments in the slaughter policy pursued towards the aborigines in wilds. This communication is much in the ot the aboriginals are the native mounted Queensland that has ever been penned, oracular style of those potsherd or parch- P° llce - Ihese consist of black 'boys, as Unhappily there is only too much evidence ment documents which we know so well in they are called, under the command of to bear out a portion of his charges. That Rider Haggard's story. There is more in European inspectors, whose cruelty was native camps have been from time to time the paper than at first meets the eye. never surpassed in the slavery days of- ' rounded up ' and their inmates mercilessly Moved thereto by certain mysterious America. Bhot down, either in retaliation for some symbols on the paper, Angland proceeds to alleged offence on the part of the blacks or Sydney, bound for Queensland, in quest of "Taranaki Herald," June 8, 1891. out of sheer wantonness, is a tact patent to the spot where his uncle died, which we . anyone acquainted with the colony in may here say he ultimately reached, ~, ,, 1S work ls made "Cresting by a question. Nor can it be denied that the discovering at a certain place indicated a skilfully constructed plot, and his sketch of capture of black girls by white settlers for Mount Morgan mine, which made him social Me in bydney is very readable. 1 heimmoral purposes is altogether unknown, wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. stoi 7 °P ens ln Auckland, where the hero though in this connection it must not be The chief part of the novel, however, is receives a mysterious letter from a dead forgotten that the native method of court- taken up with the Queensland squatter and unc j e > -written with ink which has to be ship in itself partakes of the characteristics his treatment of the blacks. According to P ,ade v »sible with chemicals, in which he.is , popularly associated with the wooing of the the author there is a lirmly established "wormed of a, rich gold-bearmg mine m Sabinesby the Romans. But Mr. Vogan slavery of the worst kind, by which the Australia. This causes Claude Angland to goes rather further than we can venture to white master exercises the, most absolute S° to , Queensland, and the author has thus confirm him in his assertions respecting the ownership over the persons of his black an opportunity of describing Australian employment of the black police in the slaves, tying them up and brutally lashing ! lfe and scenery. The atrocities as related slaughter of their less civilised fellows, them for trivial offences, and hunting them J ll this book are painfully realistic. The His statements on this head are certainly down with all the apparatus of dogs and hero discovers a rival to the now Mount most startling, and deserve sifting to the guns if they attempt to run away and Morgan gold mine.and this is told m a very utmost. . . . Mr. Vogan has produced rejoin their tribes." powerful manner j the weird scenery and a highly interesting book containing a ___ the surroundings of the cavern being succession of stirring incidents capitally ; minutely detailed. described, and some excellent portrayals "Wanganul Herald," May 10,1891. ■ of types and characters familiar tosojourners beneath the Southern Cross. He is, too, to "'The Black Police , —a very timely and "Southern News," May 29, 1891. be specially commended for the clear and powerfully written book from the pen of an „, _ „, ,p ~ , „ Zealand graphic touches with which, without any ex-iournalist of this Colony We must lhe X™ s^ J^ a £ e^ f eaU ,? d overdone attempts at word painting, he confess on reading Mr. Vogan's book we dreadful o?Lr- It fa? puts the salient features of local landscape were loth to believe that matters could be P£ nnv drea ? tU \: Or + d , er ' " T ranl s }f r before the reader's eve " so bad as he paints them, in these days of abo V e mvc t h of * he tTas l l successfully betoretne readers eye. improved civilisation, and thought that he of recent years for the novelmust be eivim? some of the darker <lfWs of- reading public. The book is not a novel, "Scottish Leader," March 19, 1891. thwhiainU^^btot*™™'"The Black Police, , by A. J. Vogan them off as things of yesterday. Mr. Vogan with the revelations regarding the terrible (London? Hutchinson), is a tale of modern gives vivid and* horrifying descriptions* of *^^ q i *ftftf Australia. It is devoted to an exposure of how the blacks are ' dispersed' in Queens- £ a I the cruelties and treacheries by which the land to-day, and did space permit we would nHanietßeecherStowes celebrated work, white man ousts the black from the home reproduce the picture of one of these blood- + -™ s) e J^ ( f KJS?! S % of his fathers. There can be little doubt curdling scenes from Mr. Vogan's pen. We *™? s T1 a Y? r ?^ ni f£^l° that many of the pictures which the writer commend the perusal of the°book itself to ' draws of Australian frontier life are true to our readers, wta will find within its covers ?* %7 n °J ld J" nature. If that be so, they are little much that will cause them to ask with ls nothing less than an awful reproach to creditable to the people who practise and Bret Harte's unsophisticated hero, 'Is our *$■ S". coml - mty ?4permit such horrors." civilisation a dream V If, like us, they are The front cover of the book contains a 1 sceptical at first of the truth of Mr. Vo'an's P lc * ur ? of one l of the sh , a meful scenes said etntPTTiPTif- tint < rlionovainrr' i" o rmKr , n Ati, o , to be frequently enacted in.the back parts "Scotsman - March 9,1891. Jj£*g* g or °Sln ZoZ « f Quee/slandlan unfortunate gin, Sped "The freshness of its material, and a treatment of the helpless aborigines, and by the hands to a stockyard is undergoing certain rude vigour that goes through it all, that the latter are hunted like cTingoes by a&0 with the lash on the bare back make the bool interesting. The story the Native Police Officers, with then- small * r , on \ °* c of * he , st^ 10 ? h - and^- n The seems to have been written with a purpose- but well-trained packs of black trackers, on the frontispiece is.still more to expose and reprehend the treatment, vho enjoy the work mth fiendish glee, they [ evoltm S- A surprise party of squatters represented as brutal, that is undergone by have only to recall to mind the telegrams f, aye across a native camp, and, in the aborigines of Australia at the hands of on the subject which are constantly the early dawj., ' disperse by slaying with thewhitel." appearing. Mr. Vogan asserts that the nfle bullefc aild^Tf] c I "S Ve Queensland Black Police frequently arrest man i wo ™ an l and ch \ ld m * he . h ,T f- &Ul % « Manchester Examiner." March 7. the wnmg natives wilfully, and give them J£toXe Itrew^the a chance to escape whilst en route for the te untoltUKate aborigines strew _ the "A cryptogram from a dead hand mdi- nearest goal. The prisoners, thinkinethev S round ' hlle J mother kneeling with an eating to a living friend a hidden treasure see their way to escape, attempt to do so, infan * clt »Ped to her. fj breast, pleads is not a new conception, but the present and their black captors coolly shoot them ua&TO"" to be sparecß story derives some novelty from the manner down, and the white officer in charge reports of its narration, as well as from the circam- the circumstance, minus the facts ?s to stances that precede and accompany the wrongful arrest and the bait) held out to Canterbury Press,' May 18,1591. discovery of the cryptogram The action tempt the prisoners to escape. Mr. Vogan's « < The Black Police.'-The discovery by opens and closes m Hew Zealand, but the book, read m the light of the disclosures Claude Angland of the rival to Mount theatre of the mam events is m Australia, that are of almost daily occurrence, should Morgan is & a wonderfully clever piece of and especially in Queensland. These events do some good, and shame the authorities of word painting, the scenefy and the weird are somewhat of the Wild West character Queensland and the other Australian surroundings of the cavern being described but they include, in addition to a pleasant colonies, within whose borders these very powerfully. The book is well worth tale of friendship rewarded and true love atrocities are perpetrated,- into putting perusal " triumphant, some heartrending exposures down such crimes. The Black Police of ' — of the sanguinary and tyrannical treatment Queensland has always been a crvinc evil «^. T ~ , m » meted out to the aborigines by the European as its dark deeds have been frequently " New Zealand Times," May S, 1891. settlers. If what is here set down even condemned and exposed by those who have "The story ought to be read in order remotely resembles the true state of affairs, had an opportunity of knowing something that the wholesale, lawless ferocious the attention of the Colonial Secretary is of their methods of 'dispersing , their butchery of the unhappy Queensland blacks urgently required. Lhe hero bought out unlucky fellows, who presume to camp or may be remembered, and measures taken there a young attendant as he might have hunt in the country taken up by pioneer for putting an end to it bought, a portmanteau; he paid £2 for squatters, whose flocks.and herds are held "The work is apparently written with a him The story proper is agreeable enough of more value than human life. Nemesis philanthropic motive as its; raS Jsr? in character, and is told with warmth and has overtaken these latter, who are now in namely, to call attention to the atrocities animation, which, however, sometimes turn harried by the shearers on strike, and which are said to be perpetrated by the degenerates into a hilarious frothiness outsiders who know for the first time black troopers,etc.,in Northern Queensland which defeats its own object . The through Mr. Vogan's book the heartless, in 'dispersing' camps of aborieffi^X episode of Billy and the'hatter'will raise ways of outlying squatters where the: from their proximity P t o squattSg stations' up friends for the author, and it is not the blacks are concerned, will see in some of may be unpleasant neighbours tothe areat only bit of exquisite writing which this their present troubles from the shearers' squatters and runholders. The best parts very unequal but very jproniieiug volume strike, a just retribution for crimes which of the novel are the desc-Jpfcions of the contains.' ■ have long cried in vain for vengeance." blacks of Northern Queensland."

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