"BANJO PATERSON."

Otago Witness, Issue 2436, 21 November 1900, Page 55

" BANJO PATERSON."

Mr A. Barton Paterson, who sailed from Hobart on the 16th inst. by the Mokoia, needed li'tle introduction in any part of the new Commonwealth, and he is almost as well known all over New Zealand. The &on of a squatter in the northern Murrumbiclgee district of New South Wales, he began his public career as a solicitor, being still a member of a legal firm in Sydney. But in his native colony he has distinguished himself as a fearless steeplechase xider, a golfer and tennis player, a poet, a war correspondent and artist, and more recently as a lecturer. He is best known as the author of " The Man from Snowy River," the most pojralai bush lyric ever written, and itwas -because, being then a practising solicitor, he wrote over the signature of " The Banjo " (the name of a horse he owned) that lie is now familiarly known by that name. His opening lecture in the Garrison Hall has been fixed for - this evening, when the man who saw so much of what everybody has been talking and reading about for the last 12 months will recount some of the moving incidents by flood and field, the big fights that make ambition virtue, which marked the progress of the British and colonial forces. Very few ■war fiorifispondenfe enjoyed the same pp-

portunities or exhibited the same powers of observation as " Banjo. ' Ho was hand in glove vith Loi-d Eoberts and the fighting generals, of whom he g-ives personal lecoilections. 'They allowed him to go wherever he liked, and he made himself at home with all branches of the service, from the regular Tommy Atkins to the irregular, but very useful, lough riders from the colonies. Mr Paterson seems to possess that gift of cheerful companionship which is one of. the seciets of success in many walks of life, so th-at is not sunrisirg to read in a Melbourne paper that at his opening lectures all society rolled, tip to welcome their Admirable Crichton, and greeted him. with an ovation that a prima donna rni-,ht have envied, and that almost unnerved the object of it. His good luck has not followed, but actually pieceded, him heie. As, he -wishes to be piesent in Sydney at the proclama'tioi of the Commonwealth, on the first day of the new century, he will rush through New Zealand, so thft eveiy day is of importance. He wanted to open to-night at the G-arrieon Hall, but it had been engaged by Major Kennedy. That gentleman has courteously given up this evening to Mr Paterson. The last lecture was to hpve been given on Saturday, tho 24th inst., on which evening Mr Donald Macdonald, who in South Africa represented the same journals as Mv Paterson, was to deliver his farewell lecture. Last Thursday Mr Macdonald, thinking that his friend was already here, •wired: "Just lieard of your arrival. Welcome. We must not clash. You -can have O-arrison Hall, 21*h, if you wish." Mr K. S. Sitnythe, on behalf of Mr Patersou, at once wived acceptance of the offer, with thanks, and the two war correspondents, who never set eyes on one another in South Africa, will shake hands in Dunedin. Mr Macdonald will lecture at 'to'-p on Monday, 26th inst., and leave the Bluff for Hobart on the following day.