The Rabbit King
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Author: Catherine Watson
Binding: Paperback
Published: Boniyong Pastoral Co, Victoria, 1996
Condition:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Yellowed
Markings: Minor stain on prelims.
Condition remarks: Slight scuffing on fore-edge, minor staining on front end-page and slight peeling cover in corners.
At the age of 15, Jack McCraith reached a momentous decision; "Everyone knows how to catch rabbits," he said. "I'll learn how to sell them." On his first buying trip, he biked into the countryside and bought two rabbits which he skinned in the back yard and hawked around the neighbours. Within 20 years he controlled a rabbit empire which stretched across half of Australia. In a 40 year career, he exported more than 130 million rabbits. Wherever the rabbits went, he went too. Rabbit chillers and trucks, emblazoned with the legend John A. McCraith, Rabbit Exporter, Spencer Street, Melbourne, dotted the back country from the Simpson Desert to the Nullabor Plains. It was a cut-throat and difficult industry filled with unscrupulous people and nohopers. Chillers were robbed or sabotaged, buyers absconded with the buying money, trucks broke down hundreds of kilometres from the nearest garage. The trappers were tough men but Jack McCraith was tougher. When he had to sort out problems in the bush, he used his fists. His methods were unorthodox. He was a big gambler and he brought the same gambling instincts to his business life. Many of the exporters went broke, but Jack McCraith survived and prospered. The Rabbit King is the previously untold story of the Australian rabbit industry, and how it kept some people alive in the harshest times and made other people very rich. It is also a personal re-telling of an old story about a poor boy who makes good. It is the story of the rise and rise of a man who perfectly suited his time and all that reveals about the way we lived and thought then.
Author: Catherine Watson
Binding: Paperback
Published: Boniyong Pastoral Co, Victoria, 1996
Condition:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Yellowed
Markings: Minor stain on prelims.
Condition remarks: Slight scuffing on fore-edge, minor staining on front end-page and slight peeling cover in corners.
At the age of 15, Jack McCraith reached a momentous decision; "Everyone knows how to catch rabbits," he said. "I'll learn how to sell them." On his first buying trip, he biked into the countryside and bought two rabbits which he skinned in the back yard and hawked around the neighbours. Within 20 years he controlled a rabbit empire which stretched across half of Australia. In a 40 year career, he exported more than 130 million rabbits. Wherever the rabbits went, he went too. Rabbit chillers and trucks, emblazoned with the legend John A. McCraith, Rabbit Exporter, Spencer Street, Melbourne, dotted the back country from the Simpson Desert to the Nullabor Plains. It was a cut-throat and difficult industry filled with unscrupulous people and nohopers. Chillers were robbed or sabotaged, buyers absconded with the buying money, trucks broke down hundreds of kilometres from the nearest garage. The trappers were tough men but Jack McCraith was tougher. When he had to sort out problems in the bush, he used his fists. His methods were unorthodox. He was a big gambler and he brought the same gambling instincts to his business life. Many of the exporters went broke, but Jack McCraith survived and prospered. The Rabbit King is the previously untold story of the Australian rabbit industry, and how it kept some people alive in the harshest times and made other people very rich. It is also a personal re-telling of an old story about a poor boy who makes good. It is the story of the rise and rise of a man who perfectly suited his time and all that reveals about the way we lived and thought then.