Colonial Boasting.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 186, 3 June 1873, Page 7

Colonial Boasting.

Mi- Anthony Trollope, in his new work on Australia, has the following;—“I suppose that a young people falls naturally into the fault of self-adulation. I must say somewhere, and may say here as well as elsewhere, that the wonders performed in the way of riding, driving, fighting, Walking, working, drinking, love-making, and speech-making which men and women in Australia told me of themselves, would have been worth recording in a separate volume had they been related by any but the heroes and heroines themselves. But reaching one as they do, always in the first person, these stories are soon received as works of fine art much cultivated in the colonies, for which the colonial phrase of 1 blowing’ has been created. When a gentleman sounds bis own trumpet he ‘ blows.’ The art is perfectly understood and appreciated among the people who practise it. Such a gentleman or such a lady was only 1 blowing !’ You hear it, and hear of it every day. They blow a good deal in Queensland, a good deal in South Australia. They blow even in poor Tasmania. They blow loudly in New South Wales, and very loudly in New Zealand. But the blast of the trumpet as heard in Victoria is louder than all the blasts, and the Melbourne blast beats all the other blowing of that proud colony. My first, my constant, my parting advice to my Australian cousins is contained in two words— ‘ Don’t blow.’ ”