Hits! Skits! and Jingles! W.T. Goodge 1904

Dustjacket synopsis:
"Hits! Skits! and Jingles! is the best known work of W.T. Goodge, who was born in London in 1862 and died in Sydney in 1909. It contains many famous verses, including "Ode To The Frying Pan", "A Genuine Bush Song", "Dan the Bullocky", "The Ozzlum Bird", "Praying For Rain" and "The Great Australian Adjective". Hits! Skits! and Jingles! was first published in 1904 and it has attracted the attention of students of Australian verse ever since. Goodge, son of a London law courts clerk, worked his passage to Australia in The Cathay at the age of 18. He left the ship at Sydney and took a job on one of Cobb & Co's properties, Windagee Station in western NSW. He contributed verses to the Dubbo Express and later took a job as a reporter and writer of verse for The Lithgow Mercury. After working for a spell in Sydney and then as editor of The Orange Leader, Goodge began freelancing for various papers. He was a prolific writer. Many of his columns included "skits" on spot or politics. He died suddenly at 47."

Contents:

The Oozlum Bird
Why?
The Baby
Drifting Down the Darling
Socialism and Anarchy
The Only Bank Not to be Robbed
How We Drove the Trotter
What Boots It?
The Fool Who Means No Harm
A Love Song
The Modern Woman
To the Impressionist School
Town and Country
Actress and Artist
The Lay of the Lovelorn Larrikin
Who Wrote the Shakespeare Plays?
On His Own
Ode To Maoriland
"Shouting"
The Frog in the Well
A Back-Block Settlement
A Quatrain
Tobacco!
Two Fools
The Rocking-Chair
They Went to Law
The Daffodil Dance
Kerosene!
The Old Dutch Clock
The Australian
How We All Look At It
Who Stole the Ponies?
Station Life
Come to Orange
Two Men and a Maid
King Whiskey
How He Died
Character and Reputation
The Shearer's Life
The Way of It
The Melodious Bullocky
The Jubilee Girl
Praying For Rain
The Burglar's Song
Civilization
Life
The Phases of the Ego
A Bad Break!
Jamberoora Flat
Ode to the Fryingpan
The Bogan Scrub
Chistmas Bells (A Carol)
Mealy Mary Ann
Alas!
The Simple Chinese Plan
The Postman
The Small Boy's Whistle
The Looming Invasion
When the Comps. are Callin'!
The Moral of Trilby
The Smithville Tandem Bike
Fast!
Clay and China
The Man and the Paper
Alas and Alackaday!
What Do You Want?
Our Dog Jim
The Maloni Evolution
Two Hypocrites
What is Luck?
A Genuine Bush Song
The Pendulum
Oozleum
The Mickity-Mulga Football Match
The Olden Golden Days
Romance and Reality
The Cruellest Cut
Scorching
When Matilda Hangs the Washing on the Line
Abu Ben Mahomet
A Great Performance
The Fate of Tate
Dan the Bullocky
Spring, Sweet Spring!
Explains It
The Quarter-Back
The New Chum and The 'Possum
Lip Tip Cat
Three Roses
Water on The Brain
"98"
Dead Sea Fruit
Quay!
Bandy Pat of Blue Gum Flat
Australia's Wisdom
The Pharisee and Sadducee
Federation
Queen Wilhelmina and the Bicycle
Katzenjammer
The Month of May
Love and the Cycles
Rural Politics
The Godly Johnsons
The Mosquito and the Politician
Bundbah
"---!" (The Great Australian Adjective)
A Sad Case
The Politician
The New Anatomy
Whew!
Why Indeed!
A Dismal Tale
On Paper
The Average M.P.
The Breath of Smelson
Same Old Style
The Indian Hawker
The Girl For Us
The Long-Bow
The Post Office Pen
Slippery Bill
On the Old Barcoo
The Loafer's Lay
Room at the Top
Old Man Canobolas
Human Nature
The Out-of-Works
Home Rule
The Woman Who Didn't
The Difference
Australian Literature
What It's Coming To
The Mining Mart
The Rural Politicians
The Truthful Man
The Great Australian Slanguage
Maud
The Use of Diplomacy
The Bush Missionary
The Shearers' Cook
The Tugs of Simpsonville
Mulligan's Shanty
McCulloch's Chump
Daley's Dorg Wattle
Chinaman Lee's Receipt
Mulga Flat
A Matter of Knack
The M'Camley Mixture
A Snake Yarn
Pullyerleg!
Football
The Guile of Dad M'Ginnis
All Same "Pinafore"
The Spielers and the Girl
The Four O'Clock Baby
The Man Who Always Runs To Catch the Tram
How to Become Immortal
A Bunch of Roses
Advice
"Mulga and Wattle"
Only a Moderate Mania
The Way of It
Burns Amended
"The Little Brown Egotist"
The Missing Mean Man
Insomnia
A Tight Place
Finally

From The Pollard Publishing Co. paperback edition, 1972.

Reviews:

"In his note fronting the title of his collection of fugitive verses, Hits, Skits, and Jingles, Mr. W.T. Goodge thanks certain subscribers for making possible the publication of this book, which the Bulletin co. has brought out. However grateful the author himself may be, he must not expect either his critics or his readers to feel or express the same kindly sentiment. I have carefully read through each and all of the 150 verses included in this book, and can find none whose rescue from the oblivion of back numbers of the Sydney Sunday Times or his own paper, the Orange Leader, is a work of heroism worthy of grateful recognition. They may well have served their purpose in the journals referred to, but when gathered together in the compact form of a volume they weary and depress. Mr. Goodge has a turn for rhyming, certainly, but it is in the nature of a bad habit which may enslave him utterly, to the prostitution of whatever literary ability may be in him." - "E.A.V.", The Critic, 1 July 1899, p13

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Last modified: May 20, 2005.