The Dominion. SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1930. THE TALE OF ADVENTURE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 221, 14 June 1930, Page 10

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1930. THE TALE OF ADVENTURE

Word has just come from the United States that Deadwood Dick is dead. It will be news to many that he ever lived or was more than the mythical hero of adventure stories which have thrilled generations of schoolboys—have given many of them guilty thrills. Once it is firmly established that he lived there are several, other surprises about his career: that he was of English birth for instance, and that his popular name was given him because the town of Deadwood, South Dakota, was his headquarters for many years. Like his contemporary. Buffalo Bill, he was in his own way a world celebrity. A strange career for Richard Clarke who, as a youth of 16 years, left England for America. Befof'e the kinema had grown sufficiently to usurp its place, the Deadwood Dick story was quoted as typical of . the undesirable kind ‘ of fiction which made boys go wrong. How far it deserved, the blame, how far it was a convenient excuse for various kinds of indiscipline and parental inefficiency, is a question that can be argued long but cannot be settled. The undoubted vogue of those small paper-covered, generally badly printed, volumes which passed from hand to hand is easily explained. ( . 1 . Literature may take many forms, but the tale of adventure, in essence the starting point of all literature, never loses its appeal. Be it good, bad, or indifferent, the adventure story always has its public, not by any means wholly composed of .schoolboys,, even if they are most heavily represented in it. The enduring popularity of the classics in thatform — Robinson Crusoe, Westward Ho! Treasure Island to quote but a trio—shows that merit is no barrier to success. These three examples have no connection with the most thoroughly exploited source of adventure stories written in English-—the American frontier with its Indians, hunters, trappers and prospectors. It has yielded many a bracing tale that deserves to grip the reader. It has also given a long-suffering public a huge mass of meretricious rubbish. Romance has gilded much that would be handled very differently by the ruthless.realist. The advance of the frontier, with, dispossession of the Indian, is, in some respects, a sad and even sordid story. The noble savage, closely examined, often appears more treacherous and bloodthirsty than noble. The romantic writer is not. bound to emphasise these things, and the way they are glossed over is the least fault of the pinchbeck section of thj? literary output. How literature tends to run in conventional channels is shown by the concentration on America, especially the United States. The wide British Empire has been little drawn upon for stopes of adventure. Something has been done with Canada, a little with the bushrangers of Australia. South Africa stands almost untouched, .New Zealand has been even more completely neglected. If there.is no reason to regret the absence of a “Deadwood Dick” fiction, in the worst sense of the term, it is still possible to feel a patriotic resentment that New Zealand’s colourful story has not been handled in a more legitimate way. The American story has often been founded on a Deadwood Dick, a Buffalo Bill, a Daniel Boone and other worthies of that type. Has New Zealand none of these? What of Jacky Marmon, the wild pakeha Maori, of the far north, who fought in innumerable tribal wars, who came in with his musket to help the British against Hone Heke? What of Frederick Maning, the most famous of the pakeha ■Maoris, whose adventurous life stands partly recorded by himself? What of Dicky Barrett, whaler and trader, who helped the New Zealand Company negotiate the purchase of the site of Wellington? What, above all, of Gustavus von Tempsky, greatest of the Forest Rangers, who stands out in the history of the Maori wars, a hero of romance like a visitor from epic days? Can the American frontier produce 1 anything more glamorous than the Forest Rangers, who, armed with carbine and bowie knife, met and matched the Maori in bush fighting? ’ Deadwood Dick is dead. The craving for the tale of adventure with which, in its lower form, his name is associated lives on. This country has the material to satisfy it. All that is needed is the writer with the industry to quarry it, and the creative imagination to bring to life historic scenes that are on record. I 111 ", w