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37 personal identity of humanity. Individuals now rarely emerge from the mass in striking preeminence. The diffusion of education, the restriction of conventionalisms, the competition of interests, tend to reduce all to a common standard. In that lower sphere of social ad vancement existing in new settlements, the physical energy of the in dividual has more scope, and the opportunities for exhibiting commanding prowess are more available. A Daniel Boone shoulders his rifle, leaves the furrows of civilization, treads the forest track of blood-thirsty savages, and returns to reveal a glowing Kentucky. Daniel Boone becomes a Hero. Certainly in no part of the world are folks less addicted to Hero Worship than in Australia. We how down to no image, unless to that of our Sovereign Lady on certain coins of the realm. And yet few places can exhibit so noble an array of daring voyagers and dashing explorers. We owe much to the heroism, for so we will call it, of a Tasman, a Cook, a Flinders, a Sturt, a Mitchell, a Leichardt, a Kennedy. These traversed dangerous seas, or surveyed perilous wilds. They make known to their distant countrymen a more advantageous sphere of toil. But is no merit due to the man that leads on a hand to occupy the wilderness,—-the one who first establishes a home in the strange land? Such a man was John Batman, the real hero of Port Phillip colonization. John Batman was the third son of William Batman of Parramatta. In the New South Wales Magazine for February 1834, we have this notice of the Australian Patriarch: “ 29th. At Parramatta, Mr. William Batman, aged 69 years. He resided in the colony 37 years, was highly respected, and his loss will be long felt by a numerous circle of friends and acquaintances.” The object of his leaving England was to engage as a Christian Missionary in the South Seas. Mrs. Batman, senior, survived her husband five years, out-living her son John about three months. Our founder was an affectionate son to an excellent mother. He maintained her comfortably in her widowhood and in his last illness would take drink only from an old black tea pot, an heir loom of the family, sent to him by his venerable parent. John Batman was born at Parramatta in 1800. When about 20 years of age a love affair necessitated his removal to the adjoining colony of Van Diemen’s Land. Tall, well proportioned, and endowed with pro digious strength, inexhaustible energy, and an indomitable will, he- was the beau ideal of a roving bushman. His was not the disposition
