Obituaries Australia

Mr D. D'Arcy, who has been on a visit to Victoria, writes up as follows:-

Am enclosing a cutting from Melbourne "Argus" of May 28, where the death is recorded of a notable Bega man of by-gone days, in Mr S. W. Polack. (The clipping in as follows: 'Mr Solomon Polack, a very old resident of Warragul, died there on Sunday, at the age of 91. He was born in New South Wales, and was one of the oldest Australian natives. In earlier life Mr Polack owned a station in New South Wales. One of his brothers wrote a history of New Zealand.') When writing up the last Bega annual races mention was made of him as being the first to use the present course, in a match with a horse of Mr Charles McGregor's, and that he was still alive in Victoria. He was a son of one of the most prominent business men in Sydney of his time. The firm of Polack and Wilson (the Hardie and Gorman of the 'thirties') had a world-wide reputation. It has been recorded of Abraham Polack, who was the senior and principal of the firm, that he was one of the astutest men in the city life of that period. Like most people in that line of life he had a desire to put his sons on the land, and after a full course of education, principally at Cape's famous school, where they had for schoolmates W. B. Dalley, Sir Jas Martin, William Forster, and other great luminaries of the past, he acquired for them the Brogo run, and also The Murrah run; the latter they subsequently became the owners of, where they reigned as kings. But, like the great majority of their origin of descent, they failed to materialise on the soil, and it passed into other hands. Then S. W. (William as he was commonly known) established an auctioneering business in Bega in about 1873, and carried on successfully for a couple of years, when he left the district, and his brother Isaac also, who subsequently died in Sydney. They were most versatile characters, and I gained much of the early history of an inside nature that I possess from them, as they were constant visitors at Daisy Bank in my very early youth. One of the incidents that I have heard him narrate, said that ???? to his old schoolmate, the Right Hon. W. B. Dalley, on the occasion of the Ministerial visit to Bega. It related to their school days, when they were having a horse race in Sydney Domain; and were blocked by a man in blue. The afterwards witty ? cried out, Don't give him your name, Billy Polack.' Dalley had to ? at this, while the others had a hearty laugh, the company being John Robertson, ? ? ? ? ? ?