Page 7 Advertisements Column 1

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 34, 10 February 1892, Page 7

THE BLACK POLICE; A STORY OF MODERN AUSTRALIA. ( "Dally Graphic," March- . 1391. "Lyttelton Times." "Chrlsiohurch Telegraph," May 19. "If the book were not writt- - 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 hi 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 a3 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 f ranted to men to shoot 'Myalls'- (wild leading idea is to illustrate the manner in lacks) on sight; or even that a native which the Australian blacks are shot down * hoy' can be bought in Queensland towns " Christchureh Press." by the squatters, especially in the back Jor a sovereign or two. Mr. Vogan, dating .. ._. . _, ~ ,T, . .... districts of Queensland. Ihe author, in from New Zealand, states that 'the scenes . ' ' Tlie Black Police. -If only one-third the bHef face to his readers says «j and main incidents employed are chiefly the °. f the scenes demoted in the book by Mr. ha , e endeavoured to depict some of the result of my personal observations" and Vogan are true, it is time such a reproach obscurer portions of Australia's shadow life. ; the remainder are from per- wa » ™pcd oft the fair fame of Australia The scenes and mnin incilients emi) l oye d lectly reliable sources.'" • .;, • Some of the scenes are painted are chiefly the result of my personal obserJ with a good deal of power. The discovery vations and ex . pe( .jen,es ; the remainder "Dally Chronicle*" April 15,1891. by Claude Angland of the rival to Mount ivom ]miect]y , ]iable , l)Urces .- The writer ; Morgan is a wonderfullyclever piece of word gives a brief sk teh of Auckland city, and y "To several colonial stories which have painting; the scenery and the weird sur- thon transports, hia her jto Queensland for Recently been published must now be added roundings of the cavern being described the purpose of liiiumg out the last resting•The Black Police; a Story of Modern very powerfully. . . • 'The Black place ofhis uncle, an explorer, and also to Australia,' by A. J. Vogan (London, Police is well worth perusal. discover, by means of a last letter from him, ißutchinsou & Co.). It is an attempt to a famous gold mine. This quest brings him depict some of the obscurer portions ot into contact with the squatter life of the Australia's shady side, and the scenes ami outlying district of Queensland, and also train incidents employed are chietly the "Otago Times," June 6,1891. makes him an eye witness of the brutal result of personal observations and. expen- ,-. . manner in which the black population are fe?H' J*" Bt ° ry » ™^ lonabl y l-ing annihilated in the inter'esk of civilisa•xciting. horrors . n Mrg gtowe . s book are har ,| ]v bon and wealth. If we are to believe Mr. »London Mornln* Advertiser," more hornble than the facts recorded here, tlie "lacks of the colony of Queensc Claud Angland, the hero of the novel, who land are not only shot down without June 10, 1891. is . n An » kland when fche sto begins> remorse, but •vidently with a degree of ' " Mr, Vogan presents us with one of the receives the last message of an uncle who £ lee o.V both native policemen and settlers, strongest and sternest indictments of the has died while exploring the Australian Oneoi the chief instruments in the slaughter fcolicy pursued towards' the aborigines in wilds. This communication is much in the ot , t :" e aboriginals are the .native mounted Queensland that has ever been penned, oracular style of those potsherd or parch- P ollce - rhes . e <»"»»» of J"** boys, as Unhappily there is only too much evidence ment documents which we know so well in ™°y aie called, under the command of *o bear out a portion of his charges. That Rider Haggard's story. There is more in European inspectors, whose cruelty was Jjative camps have been from time to time the paper than at first meets the eye. " ever . surpassed in the slavery days of 4 rounded up' and their inmates mercilessly Moved thereto by certain mysterious America. Shot down, either in retaliation for some symbols on the paper, Angland proceeds to fil)eged offence on the part of the blacks or Sydney, bound for Queensland, in quest of "Taranakl Herald," June 8, 1891. but 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, . ~c r > ls work ls made interesting by a question. Nor can it be denied that the discovering at a certain place indicated a skilfully crfnstructed plot, and las sketch of capture of black girls by white settlers for Mount Morgan mine, which made him social life in Sydney is very readable. The immoral purposes is altogether unknown, wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. story °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 ,UIC <-'• written with ink which has to be ship in itself partakes of the characteristics his treatment of the blacks. According to :"' l(l ° Vi *™ ] * Wltl ) chemicals,'in which he is popularly associated withthe wooing of the the author there is a (irmly established informed of a rich gold-bearing mine in Babines by the Romans. But Mr. Vogan slavery of the worst kind, by which the Australia. This causes Claude Angland to ,£oes rather further than we can venture to white master exercises the most absolute 8° 6o 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 bfe and scenery. The atrocities as related 'slaughter--of'their less civilised fellows, them for trivial offences, and hunting them jn this book are painfully realistic. Ihe iHis statements on this head are certainly down with all the apparatus of dogs and J ero discovers a rival to the now Mount most startling, and,deserve sifting to the gnns if they attempt to run away and Morgan gold mine.and this is told in a very utmost. . .. Mr. Vogan has produced rejoin their tribes." powerful manner; the weird scenery and a highly interesting book containing a the surroundings of the cavern being tuccession 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-journalist of this Colony. We must Bnrtin ; he J?^ K r^^n^n a f: overdone attempts at word painting, he confess on reading Mr. Vogan's book, we antl,or ' , Mr " A^ tlm \ Vo K s n ' V s noC °[ l , he puts the salient features oi local landscape were loth to believe that matters could be Pf™* « ™^ fu ' f or !f P r ; " J? k !! ™lfe before the reader's eye." so bad as he paints them, in these days of a "" v ~ucl of * he MaB J l successfully J improved civilisation, and thought that he P"«l'iced of recent, years for the novel«««ntti«»,Tß»rtA-« mapoh io .roi m « Bfc be S ivin £ some of the darker deeds of jading public. The book is not a novel, "Scottish Leader. March 19, 1091. the early ° days \ recent date and palmin{ , though an interesting story is interwoven •"The Black Police,' by A. J. Vogan them off as things of yesterday. Mr. Vogan with tlie revelations regarding the terrible (London, Hutchinson), is a tale of modern gives vivid und horrifying, descriptions of *"'?"' of *he Macks in QueenslandAustralia, It is devoted to an exposure of how the blacks.are ' dispersed in Queens- lotions as thrilling as anythingrecorded the cruelties and treacheries by winch the land to-day, and did space permit we would " if. ? (?£ \vS£' white man ousts the black from the home reproduce the picture of one of these blood- .P » cle x °» * bl "- « . ™•« the allegaof his fathers. There can be little doubt curdling scenes from Mr. Vogan's pen. We tlons «* Mr. Vogan has done a good 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, who will find within its covers l' 1 JeJ ™f to aconditio ma to h nature. If- that be so, they are little much that will cause them to ask with lH nothing less than ail awful leproach to creditable to the people who practise and Bret Harte's unsophisticated hero, 'Is our «"'* f clvll f ed and Christian community. Permit such horrors." civilisation a dream ?' If, like us they are l.he front coyer of the book contains a 1 P sceptical at first of the truth of Mr. Vogan's P ic ' n ™ oi one tl of bhe «l'ameful scenes said ««? n ntr- man » a <R ai statement that' dispersing' is only another t( f ! 'f 'rcouently enacted in the back parts , "Scotsman. March 9,1891. naniefor «butchering,' or even worse f Qneenslaud-an^ unfortunate gm, roped ! "The freshness of its material, and a treatment of the helpless aborigines, and t '^ , ' a J^fAj^^ t'Z^Xl* certain rude vigour that goes through it all, that the latter are hunted like Jingoes by * J««BWg with the lash on the bare back mak© the booTi interesting. Tim story the Native Police Officers, with their small ?™ m . °" c o{ gie station hands The seemstohavebeenwrittenwthavmT.o.e.- but well-trained packs of black trackers. I^^^^ to expose and reprehend the t!« :',ent, who enjoy the work'with fiendish glee, they ZtToL acrSTnat?ve Lmp ? represented as brutal, that is ur..!- -c hy have on yto reca to mind the telegrams \ uwc ™ me { across a native camp, and, . i ,h P ,aW igi »eso.A» ! WaU..t,h, „ v i -j£-l*- *«* « "B** StSffS tSEjtSVSI the whites. appearing. Mr. Vogan asserts that the ~~, •., ~.A ~, v rf* i„° j ri„„i. n„R„„ t „„„+'„ „ nt - man, woman, and child in the little settle- — Queensland Black Police frequently arrest ■ T , d(jad and mutUated bodies of ■ "Manchester ExamlneP," March 7. the.wrong natives wilful y, and give tnera h un f ortunate aborigines strew the a chance to escape whilst en route, for the ~„„„,] „,i,ru _ , f u ,„ Z i:„™ ~,ui. o„ "A cryptogram from a dead hand mdi- nearest goal. The prisoners, thinking they f'° onl - ' mI1»H £ Z} &ll J iX eating to a living friend a hidden treasure see their way to escape, attempt to 3o so, mfant claaped to her _ breast," pleads is not a new conception, but the present and their black captors coolly shoot them u »avauin o iy to De spared. story derives some novelty from the manner down, and the white officer in charge reports ■ of its narration, as well as from the. circnm- the circumstance, minus the facts ?.s to „„ . . _ „ „ 4r , .„_. stances that precede and accompany the wrongful arrest and the bait held out to Canterbury Press, May 13.1891. j discovery of the cryptogram. The action tempt the prisoners to escape. Mr. Vogan's '"The Black Police.'—The discovery by jopens and closes in New Zealand, but the book, read in the light of the disclosures Claude Angland of the rival to Mount jtheatreof tho main events is in 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 scenery and the weird are somewhat of the' Wild \\ est'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 crying evil, „ New Zea i a nd Times » May a irqi meted out to the aborigines by the European as its dark deeds have been frequently New Zealand Times, May 8,1891. j 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. Ihe 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. Ihe story proper is agreeable enough of more value than human life. Nemesis philanthropic motive as its mison, d'etre, in character, and is told with warmth and has overtaken these latter, who are now in namely, to call attention to the atrocities animation, winch, however, sometimes turn harried by the shearers on strike, and I 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 aboriginals, who episode of Billy ana the hatter will raise ways of outlying squatters where the from their proximity to squatting stations [ up friends tor the author, and it 10 not the blacks are concerned, will see in some 'of may be unpleasant neighbours to the great j)nly bit of exquisite writing which this their present troubles from the shearers' I squatters and ranholders. The best parts *cry unequal but very promising volume strike, a just retribution for crimes which |of tho novel are the desc-ptions of fche contains. have long cried in vain for vengeance." ' blacks of Northern Quaeiit'land." PRICE—Two Shillings, AT ALL BOOKSELLERS'.