SINGING BOUND THE WORLD.

Dunstan Times, Issue 786, 11 May 1877, Page 4

SINGING BOUND THE WORLD.

—o — The following condensed account of the trip of the Kennedy family in Australia will be interesting It wil be found that these gentlemen can tell “crammers” just as well as other travellers. The storekeepers shutting up their shops at Dunollv and “ ternporarilv” retiring from business owing to a visitation of locusts will particularly amuse Australians: To go on a musical excursion round the world—warbling the charming Ivi ics of Ramsay, Burns, and the later Scottish poets—in all places in every English-speaking country received with hospitality and heartfelt applause—and returning after four years with satisfactory results, seems to us a very delightful way of spending one's time. We, at any rate, cannot picture to ourselves a line of life more p’easant. It is gratifying even *o know that there are persons qualified to exercise vocal )lowers in a manner so universally acceptable. The public singing of songs and ballads has become almost a lost art. The stage has no longer an Incledon or Braham. Sinclair, Wilson. Templeton, have passed away. Some of the finest pieces in the Eng'ish drama can no longer be represented, simple because there is no one who can sing, or is willing to sing, in tin* popular style that pleased our ancestors. In this general dearth of vocalism, these casts up a family which fulfils at least the required condition of being able to sing the Scottish songs much ip the style of Wilson and Templeton —not actors, nor with any pretensions to the histrionic art, but vocalists possessing a 'act and taste,and a degree of literary talent qualified to afford an evening’s innocent amusement; the whole, father, sons, and dmghterslending a hand in the performance The group is somewhat interesting. We chanced to light on the father, David Kennedy, about twentv years ago, at, a very obscure place of public entertainment, and thinking there was the right stuff in him, we counselled the trial of his wings in a more pretentious atmosphere by singing, with illustrations, the songs in Ramsay’s “ Gentle Shepherd”—wonderfully fine lyrics, that in a popular way had dropped out of notice. The think took. In a single night Kennedy made his name’(as a Scottish vocalist; and so on he has gone ever since, fortified with the assistance of his family. Like a flock of nightingales, they go piping their way from country to country, every where stirring up kindly recollections of home and its lyrieal associations. Having just returned from a prolonged excursion, which included Australia, New Zealand, California, and Canada. David one of the sons, has given an •account of this remarkable family expedition, of which we propose to take some little notice. Tiie l ook might have been improved in style by leaving out a variety of colloquialisms, but taking it as it stands, it offers some graphic notices of the places visited, and of the adventures that were encountered. The father, mother, three brothers, two sisters, and “ Cousin Tom” ns business agent, sailed from the Clyde in June, 1873, and without adventure arrived safely at Melbourne. Here was a stay of three months, with a successful course of singing. There were numbers of Scotch in Melbourne, who came to hear the old melodies of their native country. Wecnn hardly fancy the passion with which these coloni-ts, of all classes, will go miles and miles to listen to sneh songs as “ John Anderson my Jo,” “ My Nannie (),” or “ Lncliaher no more,” For the time being t.' ey are in a transport of delight Besides enjoi ing crowded houses, the Kennedy’s were charmed with the weather. The weather was called winter, but it “ was genial and bracing, and never very cold, with a sky generally cloudless and transparent. There was a sunny sparkle in the air that proved in the higlies* degree exhilarating One seemed to be breathing brilliance—inhaling aerial champagne ” After Melbourne, the next towns visired were Ballarat. Geelong, a' d some others, the varied journey being uniformed partly by mil wav and partly by stage coaches With a view to a more independent system of travelling the family bought an American waggon, with a s ,ttnie built hndv and a g'az°d leather roof, (he body being hung upon layers of leather be’ts. to accommodate the plunging and jolting over rough roads. Horses were also pifchased, and an Irishman hired as driver To this turn out was shortly afterwards added a buggy, sufficient, to accommodate two persons, and which ' was appropriated by two older members of the family. With these vehicular accommodations a long round was performed to out-of-the-way places, and then there was ft short return to Melbourne. Next, a fresh start, and a wild journey to visit remote places, to which there was no other road than diverging tracks through the hush, which had often to he taken at random In their visit to Melbourne and other towns, the Kennedy's had often

occasion to come across “ Torturations" exiled from England, who, after all sorts of shifts, were driving bullock waggons or street cabs —in which hist capacity they excelled, perhaps from their horsey proclivities in the cld country. When sunk to an abject condition, and when they do not iu despair drown themselves in the Yarra Yam, as is too often the case, these hapless specimens of Tortu rat ions take to begging under t.he name of <• swagmen.” The loneliness of travelling through the hush was sometimes relieved by the appearance of a swagman on the liorisnn. “ The swagman or tramp is a kind of demoralised gaberlunzie, who trudges about from squatter to squatter and from township to township, begging fond or assistance on his journey—which journey is end [ess, and continues from \ ear’s end to year’s end. The professional swagman walks to live. One species of tramp is the ‘ sundowner,’ so called from his habit of appearing at a squatting station about sunset, and asking food and shelter for the night. The geneious < open-door’ hospitality of the eatly days, which has utterly been abused, is fast disappearing from amongst the squatters, and instead of bis usual coH mutton, the swagmen now get the cold shoulder. Sometimes the tramps accept work once a year, about shearing time, at one or other i f the sheep-stations or seek occupation in a country town ; hut as a rule they are migratory and h'zy. An uninitiated person is very apt to confound the swagman with the foot-passenger orunemployed mechanic travelling in search of work, flair equipment being the same—a s swag,’ or strapped-up bundle of sleepinghlankets, slung over the shoulder; a ‘ billy,’ or tin can, in which to make tea or <offee while camping; and a small ‘pannikin’ to drink water out of at any creek or spring Now and tb nn you see sailors and ship-stewards 1 swaggiag it’ through the busk, runaways from some Lit ely landed vessel; but the eye at once detects them as amateurs ; they have not the swing of the professional loafer.” ( Continued in our next)