"THE LONE HAND."

NZ Truth, Issue 101, 25 May 1907, Page 7

"THE LONE HAND."

THE M BULLY'S " LATEST BOODLE.

Bob's Worth of " Tripe."

Piffle, Pqerility and Puff.

"Bully" journalese, nearly all of it. "The Lone Hand" has been played, And the beggarly array of cards it held ! For close on twenty months has this mountain been convulsed with its internal throfo'bin'gs of its "literary" labor, and at the birth, heralded by mystic murmurings and innumerable puffing portents, there has been delivered, " not even a mouse, but, at a shilling's charge, the veriest "tripe." It is alleged of Garrick that he told a fellow actor, "You may humbug the public m tragedy, but I beg you not to try to do so m comedy, for that 1 is a serious thin,";*" Much more serious it is. for a newspaper proprietary, pride-ridden because of the case wherewith it has humbugged the people of Australasia, to try on the game of playing the part of a monthly Autolycus (at so much per mensumj) to blear the eye with quids and' jgauds and seeming _sj)pjL'tfc iveness. The" greatest" defect' of judgment j as of penetration, is not m going, far . enough, but m going too far. The '"Bully" has now gone too fac to suit -even the somewhat delicate dialectical digestion of Australians. "The Lone Hand" is a dreary, decrepita'tious-, dolorific debacle.

Poeisibly a combination 'of "high aims,. and sordid circum stances." At least it is, perhaps, an amlritious attempt, conjoined with noverty of material- Merely a monthly "Bully" m association with the most puetile characteristics of its over-sea and in-tra-Commo:vwealth contemporaries^ "Features? To be honest, 'The Lone Hand' is not going very much on 'features' " 'So t-he hoomitog. blazon of the ' adverMsemen't tells us. In very truth the "magazine" is featureless ; flabby, facinorous, faltering,' frowsy, flatulent. An "Australian MaEazi'ne!" What scope for national literary development ! What an ideal for the inauguration of an Australian literature and the encouragement of. the native muses ! Yet what ,is the deliverance? The "Bully's" ba/by (conceived m the weigtot of an advancing senility, brought forth in' dribbling decadenC3' and ' sesmingly to be nurtured m a diarrhoea of dronisih vaporings) is, save arid except m, the respoctsIwreafter to be noted, no more attributely Australian than any of its past or present prototypes of, lecal publication. It is a veritable Lixivium ,of liiterature. Others of local productions' posse"ss a higher claim to be regarded as typical- Australian than this fantastical flutter of the orange wrapper. What m the whole print holds forth promise for the future ? . . . . \ .

place before him, and had seized a "•Un. This Brown wrenched away, and cleared the house of^ others coming m. .. . . v ■.. , , . TJtlier Moirisites started for the stack of arms.

1 Wm. Elocdi arid Win. Beisley, of jKaySville? who with others were

GUARDING THE SURRENDERED

,AKMS, : 'I were compelled to resort to force to ' ■ withstand the advancing cr,6w>d'.' Burton realising- *h e situation, called lou-dly to the prisqners to halt, and unable to get between Morris and the schoolhouse, he shouted to'lvis men, "Stop the prisoners," firing .liis-- revolver twice at Morris. Others fired simultaneously, some eight or ten shots being fired by the posse. Great excitement prevailed for the instant. The militia came rushing m from the outside, and some opened fire on tlie fort from outside. Seeing the danger was over, Burton commanded to cease firing, when an inspeotion revealed that four person© toad laeen shot, three killed outright, and a fourth mortally wounded.

Morris lay dead near the schoolhouse, Baulcs seriously wounded near by, and the bodies of two women, Mrs Bowman and Mrs Swainee were

: NEAR THEIR LEADER. With his death- all resistance ceased. Thes wants of the people were suppliedi and the prisoners, 140 m number, were taken to Salt Lake City. They were tried at the March, 1863, term of court, found guilty, and sentenced m various ways from punishment for fifteen years to one hundred dollars fi n e. Governor Ha-rd-ine; was appointed to take ' the place of Governor Dawson immediately; after the conviction of the Morrisites, and m order to show , authority pardoned those convicted at the last term of court. This act brought- a report oi censure on his bead by the next U.S. Grand Jury that was convened, and which was placed upon the records, as were the views- of Judge Kinney, who regarded the act of Governor Harding as inimical to the test interests of the Territory.

Burton was indicted m 1&70 for THE MURDER OP THOSE KILLED m the fight at Morristown, but m 1872 the Supreme Court of the United States, at Washington , declared that the indictment was a false and illegal one. Ei^ht years after another indictment "was found against him, and on the 18th of February, 1879 he was brought for trial before Chief Justice Michael Shaeffer (a non-Mormon), upon 'the affidavit as published m Mrs. Stembouse's book. So much contradictory evidence was introduced as to entirely exonerate R. T. Burton fiqm blame, and establish the fact that he was ali the ■ while acting under orders from officials of the United States, and that the Mormons as a Community had ncrthan'g whatever to with it. The jury that brought this verdict were half Mormons and half non-Mormons, so that the accusation falls to the ground, that Burton was acquitted by a; jury composed of men of his own reiipjious belief. These factsi cam be verified by the court records of Utah Territory, andi the Supreme Court of the ! United States, at Washington. The facts stated were craven under oath, and not taken from b©ok& o& quesition&ble veracity «,

Let us speak' "by the card. It is no secret that the "magazine" (to call it by its crude and inappropriate appellation) owes its origin to the lucubration of a labor-weaay and toil-tired, veteran. None the worse for that, may be, since we must all grow old. How has his self-imposed burden been carried out? By seizing the skirts of happy nationality ? By enrolling the spirits , of our bush-lands ? By reverberating the thunder of our mine, mills or the semi-sUent subterranean echoes of , our earth-bowel workers? By the reproduction of the glorious growths of our wheat fields, the wealth of our fleeces, the bellowing of our cattle 1 What is there of the national life ? What cf national a&piiration ? Where m all of it is the Spirit of the bush ? Where, indeed, the darksome Echoes Of the Cities? There are none of these. The print (so far as jnatJcnaJt'ilv-Mid. --J^|aoElaJl, litecatureuj are concerned) ' mipnt just as ireadijy j have come from the London presses of aj Newness or a ' Harmswortfe. And it is paying them no compliment to say that they would have done it better, for it is nought but a ' criminal and crooitatious creation— j an Australian journal. In the past there have been many endeavors to establish "Australian magazines." Where aro they to-day ? Yet even the paltry pettishhess of the "Cen- ! tcn'Tvial" and the acephalous adumhratioiis. of the "Antipodean" pale into insignificance alongside the beery, blatant fcoorishness of the "Bully's" bairn.

I Ex-Editor Arch/ib-ald himself is its j apologist. In a personal and particuilar opening autobiographical sketch, all lavishly' laudatory of self airi his associates, he/ prefaces wifch, " The writer feels that some kind of apology is due to himself." Unmistakably a proifound apologiy is due to the purchasers (we need not say the readers) of the "Lone" one. And who are his associates ? Nearly all the same old tribe. The "Bully's" old -hr-odd o>f blithering blmkard?— the sama pleuritic and, platitudinous prosemra, the same vain, vicious and vinious versifiers (erratic and erotic), | the same •acerbated and absurd "artists." Take it from its hideous title rase atrri front cover (depictrhs such a man as never was against a background rce-ne never to be found "■in the heavens above, on the earth ■bsneai/h, or below the waters that are on tire face- of the earth") to the most injudicious and palpable robbery used as a "filling m." at the end of the volume. What \s it but a conjugation of cru dating claptrap ! Many of the articles are of the character of the -"puff ditec-V 7)ossi'bly paid fbr or 'to 1;e paid for hereaiter; Coukl there, for example, by a more patent try-on to <'bo n dle" the Federal Go'ver,nment (by its purchase of copies to disseminate' a-, U'QftdO, JbhanLL Wife sketch. o£ "Prolific Australia" '! Ordinary iouiTuikse, all lof it, and most r uninteresting and unin formative at. that, and such as, |m style and grammar, would disgrace a "cadet" on a daily's staff. The commercial instinct is also strong m "Modern Life Insure nee M — a ; deliberate advertisement for the crafty "Citizens," m a scrappy "interview" with Bland Holt ; a page with Grace. Palotta's kisses; and m severcal other articles. The glint of gold to be gained is m them u'l Look at the hogwasu pases devoted to "Playing Cards," to "Hop's" essay on fiddles, "From Gremona to Cremorne," aad to "Metedith— Poet and Philosopher," and one must be reminded of those wbo turn over the pages of half a library to make one article, for they are but simple compilations' firom cyclopaedia.? and biographies. , ; ;

| ■ Nobbing more banal and blatant has ever appeared m the "Bully" itself than Bayldon's "review" of j "Australian. Poetry," an entire ex'altatious eructation upon the merits iof the carmdnated Poetasters • all others • (save alone Kendall and. Gordon) are "dismissed with a contemptuous shrug." The art of adventitious advertising is all over it. As for the rest, the' production is made 1 tip largely of the savings and scraps m the "Bully's" waste basket, thrown there as rejected by that most particular publication. Proof of this ? Here it is, on pafre 100, a jingle o n "The Paying Guest," brazenly bearing; amidst its surrounding pencil work the legend, "For the Bulletin.— B. E. Minns, London, 1901." Up to date ! Apain the hotel* potoh of scissors and paste, impudently headed "The Judicious Thief," and occupying eight pages with stolen stuff from American monthlies, and with copious, if sententious, excerpts from Ibsen, Heine, Rusk-in, Balzac, and Poe, must make even the "judicious" robber grieve at his temerity m setting out suoh things as "Australian literature.". Why "Bleeds" and* his brood can do better than this. Their model is followed of -oresenting catchpenny illusions of "benefit" offers.

The boasted "artistic stren#th" o f the, "Lone" weakling; comes from the same oM gaiiß. "Hop," who can do good work, is disappointing; throughout ; Norman and Lionel Lindsay, even Souter, are not up to their former mark ; while the heading and foot sketches are most gross plagiarisms and adaptations, and evren then ill-drawn.

Of juvenility,, originality, or evidence of virility there is none m the volume. Begotten of such a bTeed, how can the puny "Lone" one,- the progeny of a source which has done* its evil best to damn and blast Australian literature, to distort the national sentiment, and to destroy the national spirit, hope to survive? It deserves to die, and no one who holds dear the national life of Australia, with her capacious future, and even with her present and some of her nast awaiting" the historian, the poet, the proseman. and the artist will regret the demise which, if it f is noi insvita/We, is fully wamntedy