Untitled

Otago Witness, Issue 3542, 31 January 1922, Page 26

Who is the most famous uncle in literature? Thirty years ago only one answer could have been given. It would have been “Uncle Toni,” who dwelt in the world-renowned “cabin,” and whose sufferings did much to hasten the emancipation of his fellow slaves. He was only an “uncle” by courtesy, just as many an old woman is addressed as “granny” who has no other claim to that title except age. Almost as well known to-day is another “uncle by courtesy,” also a negro. This is the immortal “Uncle Remus,” whom Joel Chandler Harris depicts so inimitably as relating to a little white boy the fanciful doings of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Tarrapin, and Brer B’ar. Uncle Remus is a universal favourite, and all the children are his rephewe and nieces. Probably the most humorous uncle in literature is that Uncle I’odger who hangs a picture in -T. K. Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat” ; whilst undoubtedly the most saturnine is Uncle Ralph Nicklcby in Dickens’s masterpiece, and the most horrible that frightful old miser uncle of David Balfour in Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Kidnapped.” Trie creator of Sherlock Holmes has a very attractive uncle in the best of his French novels, “Uncle Bernac,” and those who are above military age will recall the longsuffering “Uncle Harry,” who endured a week’s misery with “Budge and Toddy,” in that once world-read book “Helen’s Babies.”