"CABBAGE TREE" NED

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 117, 19 May 1937, Page 18

"CABBAGE TREE" NED

■•j So long as the pioneering days of Australia are remembered so long will Cobb and Co.'s coaches and their wonderful drivers be talked about. And of their drivers the greatest of them all was "Cabbage Tree" Ned (says the Adelaide "Chronicle"). His real name was Edward Devine, but he was known to all and sundry as "Cabbage Tree" Ned on account of his hat. Judging by the tales told of him he was the ' Bradman among coachdrivers, and could tool a, team of ten or a dozen horses as easily as the ordinary driver could handle- a pair. He was a native of Tasmania, where he was born in 1833, but it was in Victoria, during the gold-rushes of the "fifties" that he acquired his reputation as a coach driver. When the railways forced the coaches off the roads Ned went to New Zealand, where his talents were at once in demand. But Nemesis, in the shape of the iron-road, still' pursued him, and he eventually returned to Victoria, and at a later date "handled the. ribbbns" in Western Australia. Then he fell upon evil days, he became an' inmate of the Ballarat Benevolent Asylum, and in 1908 the great coachman passed to his long rest. But he will live long in the recollection of Australians, and recently a handsome memorial, subscribed by his many friends all over the Commonwealth, was unveiled at the 'New Cemetery, Ballarat. "Them were the days," as an American writer put it, and those who were privileged to make coach journeys in the "wild and woolly" days to the mining camps of Australia, whether to Ballarat, the Barrier, the Tuiron, or the Western Australian fields, can conjure up recollections of genial and capable drivers, jolly acquaintances, met for the first .time, good-natured. Bonifaces, and spanking teams, all of which combined to make the journeys pleasant memories.

work was shown, and I particularly liked the wood-carving, mostly animals and birds, little -morg- than suggested, but smooth and polished, the grain of the wood enhancing the central idea.

"Sir Edward Lutyens's suggestion for the remodelling of Hyde Park Corner attracted many. He has taken in a slice of Buckingham Palace grounds, stolen'a corner of the Green Park, and removed the. odd patches of waste ground and statuary, converting the centre into a space with lawns and paths, and enabling better roadways for traffic. As this is the busies^ corner in the world, more vehicles passing here in the.24 hours than at any other point on earth, it may yet be necessary, to adopt something like his suggestion.