BACKGROUND
Athough the Armidale Express has been recording the life and times of its community for 155 years, it is not (yet) included in the National Library of Australia's fantastic project to make out-of-copyright newspaper articles available online in a fully searchable format, so (as Gordon Smith is doing) when I see old articles with a local connection, I'll republish here.
The Australian Newspapers Digitisation Project (ANDP) has taken a unique approach to making light work (relatively speaking) of an enormous task. Digital images of microfilmed newspaper pages are put through a text recognition computer program and then made available to the general public for editing. It's wikipedia for copy editors... and hordes of volunteers have become addicted to it.
As the NLA explain
"The text output of the automated computer process is poor because, like historic newspapers in other countries, the original newspapers and the microfilm are of low quality and sometimes hard to read. That means full text searching is not always accurate. However you can help make it better for everyone by checking the image of the newspapers page against the electronically translated text and making it accurate. Your changes are immediately saved to the database and searching is instantly improved. We are the first library in the world to make this innovation available to the public. By February 2011 we had 20,000+ people helping out and 30 million lines of text had been corrected during the last 2 years."
The Armidale " Gorilla.". (1892, February 16). The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW : 1843-1893), p. 3. Retrieved March 13, 2011, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19006627
The Armidale " Gorilla."
(Express.)
In the last issue of the Express appeared a rather startling account of the appearance of an alleged gorilla at Kangaroo Hills, when it is stated that four stockmen were pursued from place to place by an animal resembling the African gorilla, and which appeared to have superhuman powers of locomotion, judging by the narrative forwarded us. We learn, from an old and respected resident who knows the part of the country well, referred to in our last issue, that some years ago while mustering cattle near the spot where the animal was last stated to have been seen, the men engaged received a similar scare, and declared they had seen a large animal resembling a man which advanced towards them. Gorillas are supposed to be unknown in this country, though it is but in comparatively recent years that the discovery of this monkey in Africa was made. The gorilla, described as a great African ape, is mentioned as being supposed to be identical with the same animal referred to in the " Periplus" of Hanno, the Carthaginian navigator who visited the tropical parts of the West Coast of Africa, about the year 350 B.C. Since then vague accounts of apes of great size have been brought from time to time from Africa, but it was not until 1847 that the gorilla was really known to naturalists, when a skull was discovered by Dr. Wilson, an American missionary, on the Gaboon River. Later, in 1860 or 1861, Du Chaillu, the intrepid African explorer, discovered two species of Troglodytes in Africa, and since then later discoveries have been made, and stuffed specimens of this great ape, so remarkable for its ferocity and immense strength, have been added to museums. As we before remarked, gorillas are unknown to bave existed in this country, though on the East Indian Archipelago to the north of us, and in many instances showing similar geological formation the monkey tribes exist. Whether the gorilla may exist in wild and broken country such as may be found in the neighbourhood of Kangaroo Hills and other parts of the colony appears doubtful, but if proof can be given of this, then probably the famous "debil debil" of the blacks may be in some measure accounted for. We are informed that to-morrow a number of horsemen, armed with rifles, will visit the spot where the animal was stated to have been seen, and it is to be hoped if they unearth him they may bag the creature without losing the number of their mess. The story furnished to us appears so romantic that of course the casuistically inclined will only accept cum grano salis, but the source of information was a reliable one, and the stockmen who were out on the occasion are spoken of as trustworthy men, both by the owner and manager of the station.
* 'the casuistically inclined' - no way our esteemed Editor would let us use a phrase like that these days!
ARMIDALE. (1877, December 27). The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW : 1843-1893), p. 6. Retrieved March 13, 2011, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18832211
ARMIDALE.
(Armidale Express, Dec. 21.)
Scarcely eight months have elapsed since Mr. Lonsdale, the contractor for the large additions to the Armidale gaol, commenced the work; during that period great progress has been made, and in a very short period the exterior or closing wall, together with the towers, will be completed. The foundations of the work-shop, store, bath, hospital, and prison kitchen are also far advanced, and the whole work, it is expected, will be satisfactorily completed within the contract time.
This district has again been favoured with showers, and the grass has greatly benefitted by them. But the table land is infested with travelling stock, and every resident who has stock running on unfenced land is complaining about the starved out animals from the west.
