Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1913 — HATED BY ALL AUSTRALIA [ARTICLE]

HATED BY ALL AUSTRALIA

Man Who Introduced Rabbits Into the Country la Cursed by the Nation. In the early days of Australian settlement—just when, nobody can say—some well-meaning emigrant sailed from old England, taking with him, among his most cherished possessions, a couple of pairs of rabbits, probably the pets of his children. The name of that pioneer is not chronicled in Australia’s history. He may have been a most worthy man—a man whose life and works in the country of his adoption might very well have earned for his memory the greatest respect and regard, but nothing he did or could have done would be sulQcient to wipe out his terrible blunder, ilia name, whatever it may have been, is anathema; his memory is vile; his folly unforgivable. This pioneer may have had the best intentions in the world. When Australians speak of him they admit that possibility, but in their anger they refuse to accept it as an extenuation of his heinous conduct They are ready to believe that In England the rabbit is harmless. They know that In England “bunny” is carefully protected in game preserves, and is regarded as a delicacy for the table of the rich. They know that it is a serious offense for unauthorized persons to kill or steal rabbits from an English game preserve, and that not so very many years ago poachers were transported to the convict settlements of the colonies for life for no/greater offense than this; but when they see their Australian farms or grazing lands denuded of every vestige of herbage by hordes of hungry rabbits, the progeny of those first two pairs, they curse loud and long. They then go out and slay millions of the pest by poison and suffocating fumes. —Wide World Magazine.