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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at http : //books . google . com/ BY THE SAME AUTHOR. THE LAST OF THE TASMANIANS. • With Coloured Illustrations, price 16§, OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 4' It is valuable alike for the information it gives us, and the many carefully executed engravings it contains. It ought to be one of the most popular books of the season.— The Literary World. " Mr. Bon wick's previous literary labours are well known in Australia, and the present will add to his well-deserved character for careful re­ search and strict fidelity. The volume Is handsomely bound and illus­ trated, and should find a place in every colonist's book-shelf ."—Home New8. " Everybody not absorbed in Irish politics will be interested in the « Last of the Tasmanians.' . The sympathetic feeling and kindli­ ness of tone which the author displays toward the friendless aborigine gives us that bias in his favour which we alluded to at the commencement of our notice."—Atherueum. " The access which he has had to the early records of the colony and other official sources of knowledge gives an authentic stamp to much of his material. There are indeed countless traits in the character of these simple islanders, as told by our author, to Justify the affectionate regret with which he dwells on their extinction, as well as to make very attrac­ tive reading out of the events which mark the evening of their days."— Saturday Review. " It is impossible to conceive of a more mournful and depressing story. It is the story of a race not only subjugated, but demoralized—not only demoralized, but extinguished.'— DaOy Nemos. " The recital is at once romantic, suggestive, and instructive in all its varied incidents, and is compiled with an attention to circumstantial detail plainly indicating the deep interest which the narrator felt in his work. ... He contemplates the production of another work on the subject, for which he has reserved many interesting and important details; our knowledge, therefore, of Tasmania promises to be as com­ plete as it was formerly defective/'—Manting Post. " Mr. Bonwick writes with a full knowledge of his subject, derived from actual experience among the savage race, whose downfall he so Justly de­ plores. ... He has told his story plainly and forcibly; so plainly and forcibly that many besides himself will find it romantic, affecting, and suggestive. It will be read with advantage, sad as the story is, by all who are interested in the fate of those wild races upon whose gradual decline and fall the foreign empire of Britain seems doomed to be founded. The history is full and complete."—The Standard. " Mr. Bonwick, long known as a zealous and able advocate of the rights of the weaker races of mankind, has narrated the tragical history of the aborigines of Tasmania. Nothing was left but to tell the story of outrage and cruelty, and this Mr. Bonwick has done with the sympathy of a philanthropist and the fidelity of an historian. His work has con­ siderable literary merit. It contains a large amount of valuable ethno­ logical information, and no pains have been spared to insure accuracy of statement. In a word, Mr. Bon wick's volume will richly repay perusal." —Colonial Intelligencer. ; LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & MARSTON, 188, FLEET STREET, B.C. "r>o^vtf JUST PUBLISHED: THE DAILY LIFE AND ORIGIN OF THE TASMANIANS. WITH AN APPENDIX ON TASMANIAN GEOLOGY. With Illustrations. Price 12s. 6d. This book is in every respect a companion volume to the author's " Last of the Tasmanians.'? It describes the physical features, the habits and customs, the language, and the superstitions of the islanders. A considerable space is devoted to the account of female life in the forests of Tasmania. The subject of the origin of the Tasmanians has been treated from a philological, a geological, and a more strictly ethnological point of view. OPINIONS OF THE PRE8S. "The 'Daily Life of the Tasmanians' will become popular among all who like to hear particulars of the habits and customs of the people of other countries. This is a companion volume to the author's ' Last of the Tasmanians ;' a work which was deservedly spoken very highly of." —Public Opinion, «' A more interesting work than even Mr. Bonwick's former book. He has produced a volume which will have much that is new for the craniologist. The science of language receives in it illustrations from fresh sources."—Atherueum. " From his great experience, and the labour he has taken to give us authentic facts concerning these departed people, everything he says on the subject must command universal attention. We are astonished at the amount of labour and knowledge the author has brought to bear on his subject. He.has altogether produced a most valuable book."—Euro* pean Mail. " Deeply interesting as Mr. Bonwick's elaborate story of extermina­ tion has been pronounced, it fairly yields the palm to his account of the habits, the morals, the arts, the superstitions of a people whom English civilization has improved off the face of the earth. The author is an earnest friend to the doomed race. The twin volumes, with their abundant research, their careful statement, and their excellent illustrations, consti­ tute a history of one of civilization's darkest episodes which did not exist before, and need not again be written."—Daily Telegraph. " Materials for such a history (of the Tasmanians) have been zealously collected in the colony by Mr. Bonwick, and the results of his labours are given in these two interesting volumes."—Ethnological Journal, London. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & MARSTON, 188, FLEET STREET, E.C. CURIOUS FACTS OLD COLONIAL DAYS. JLS BY JAMES BONWICK, F.R.G.S., \ AUTHOB 0» , •"" * THE LAST O* THS TAflMAJTIAJTS," " OBOGBAPHT 01" AUBHUtlA,' ETC., BTO. ILmrtJon: SAMPSON LOW, SON & MARSTON, CBOWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET, E.C. 1870. [All Bights Reserved.'] PUBLI: L.-.: '..-- 151152A ASTOR, LFNOT A.*:-) TILDEN FCUr-LAllOi^S Ft 1924 JL PREFACE. As the first Bishop of Australia truly remarked, some of the greatest political questions agitating English Society were previously discussed in the Australian Colonies. Englishmen carried thither their love of freedom and their sense of justice. There, less governed by traditionary impulses, pro­ vided with more scope for action, and more strongly urged by the brighter future opening before their children, they have ventured not only to arraign the principles sanctioned by venerable antiquity, but have sought the emancipation of their adopted homes from the evils of the past, and have boldly claimed the individual right of Colonists to be free indeed. The present sketches of Australian and Tasmanian history will mark the difficulties of progressionists, and indicate the ultimate triumph of freedom.