The Boy in, the Bush. By the late Richard Rowe.
(Hodder and Stoughton.) —This book is rather a series of sketches than "a tale of Australian life," though it has a connecting thread of personal interest. However this may be, it is more vividly descriptive and, as far as we are able to judge, more absolutely true, than most books of the kind. Both the lights and shadows of Australian life are effectively given. We have pictured to as the bushranger " Warrigat," who keeps a whole countryside in terror till, thanks chiefly to the pluck of a little boy, he falls into the hands of the police. An Australian drought and an Australian flood are also described. Nor is the difficult subject of the Aborigines passed by. "it is not pleasant," says the author, "to have to write about such things, but I mast if I have to tell the whole truth about Australia. Sydney soon got quite envenomed against the blacks, whom he had robbed of their hunting-ground, because they were killing off his cattle ; and not long afterwards Harry and Donald fully sympathised with him. Net One of the three felt the slightest scruple in shooting down a black, and then cutting off his head and hanging it in terrorem on a tree, as a gamekeeper nails a hawk against his gable." This is what has been said over and over again, and as often denied by Colonial officials. Mr. Rowe was evidently a patriotic Australian, and we take it that his testimony on the point is conclusive. Generally, we should say that if any one wants to see the truth about life in the Australian bash, he cannot do better than read this volume.
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