Tar and Feathered in Narrabri

The narrative ‘Tar and Feathers‘ poem by Paterson tells a humorous story about a prank played on a thieving youth at a circus. Paterson utilizes his signature style of bush ballad with rhyming couplets, colorful Australian slang, and a strong narrative.

The poem opens by setting the scene in the outback town of Narrabri, where a traveling circus has arrived to entertain the locals. A crafty boy sneaks into the circus without paying by crawling through a tent flap, congratulating himself on outwitting the proprietor.

However, the “showman astute” catches the boy and decides to punish him through public humiliation. Rather than lashing him, the proprietor tarred and feathered the boy as an amusing spectacle.

Paterson’s vivid description of the boy “half bird and half boy” captures the circus-like humor of the situation. However, the magistrate fails to see the joke and fines the proprietor for his vigilante actions.

Through this bush tale, Paterson pokes fun at duplicitous people who try to outsmart the system. The proprietor’s creative punishment fits the crime, while the stuffy magistrate cannot appreciate the poetic justice. Paterson seems to celebrate the proprietor’s humorous ingenuity and frontier-style justice.

The singsong rhyme scheme, Australian vernacular like “beak” and “spiflicate,” and absurd imagery give the poem a lively rhythm and memorability. Paterson skillfully blends entertainment with a subtle message about crime and punishment through this comic bush narrative.

Tar and Feathers

    Oh! the circus swooped down
    On the Narrabri town,

For the Narrabri populace moneyed are;
And the showman he smiled
At the folk he beguiled
To come all the distance from Gunnedah.

    But a juvenile smart,
    Who objected to “part”,

Went in “on the nod”, and to do it he
Crawled in through a crack
In the tent at the back,
For the boy had no slight ingenuity.

    And says he with a grin,
    “That’s the way to get in;

But I reckon I’d better be quiet or
They’ll spiflicate me,”
And he chuckled, for he
Had the loan of the circus proprietor.

    But the showman astute
    On that wily galoot

Soon dropped—you’ll say that he leathered him—
Not he; with a grim
Sort of humorous whim,
He took him and tarred him and feathered him.

    Says he, “You can go
    Round the world with a show,

And knock every Injun and Arab wry;
With your name and your trade,
On the posters displayed,
The feathered what-is-it from Narrabri.”

    Next day for his freak,
    By a Narrabri beak,

He was jawed with a deal of verbosity;
For his only appeal
Was “professional zeal”—
He wanted another monstrosity.

    Said his worship, “Begob!
    You are fined forty bob,

And six shillin’s costs to the clurk!” he says.
And the Narrabri joy,
Half bird and half boy,
Has a “down” on himself and on circuses.