1878. `The Australian,' vol. i. p. 418:
"The billy wins, and `Jack the Painter' tea
Steams on the hob, from aught like fragrance free."
1880. Garnet Walch, `Victoria in 1880,' p. 113
"Special huts had to be provided for them [the sundowners], where they enjoyed eleemosynary rations of mutton, damper, and `Jack the Painter.'"
<hw>Jackaroo</hw>, <i>n</i>. a name for a Colonial Experience (q.v.), a young man fresh from England, learning squatting; called in New Zealand a Cadet (q.v.). Compare the American "tenderfoot." A verse definition runs:
"To do all sorts and kinds of jobs,
Help all the men Jacks, Bills or Bobs,
As well as he is able.
To be neither boss, overseer, nor man,
But a little of all as well as he can,
And eat at the master's table."
The word is generally supposed to be a corruption (in imitation of the word Kangaroo) of the words "Johnny Raw." Mr. Meston, in the `Sydney Bulletin,' April 18, 1896, says it comes from the old Brisbane blacks, who called the pied crow shrike (<i>Strepera graculina</i>) "tchaceroo," a gabbling and garrulous bird. They called the German missionaries of 1838 "jackeroo," a gabbler, because they were always talking. Afterwards they applied it to all white men.
1880. W. Senior, `Travel and Trout,' p. 19:
"Jackaroos—the name given to young gentlemen newly arrived from home to gather colonial experiences."
1881. A. C. Grant `Bush Life in Queensland,' vol. i. p. 53: