How M’Dougal Topped the Score by Thos. E. Spencer

Martin Chandler | 8:52am GMT 17 March 2024

Published: 1997
Pages: 16
Author: Rosenwater, Irving
Publisher: Private
Rating: 3 stars

How M’Dougal Topped the Score is a fictional account, written in verse, of a cricket match played in Australia between Piper’s Flat and Morongo. Given the title of the story it will not come as a surprise to learn that a record breaking performance from M’Dougal won the game for Piper’s Flat.

The verse first appeared in the weekly Sydney magazine The Bulletin, a periodical that began in 1880 and did not finally disappear from the newsstands until 2008. The tale is the sort of thing that was, presumably, popular in 1898, but I have to say that while reading it was not totally tedious, I wouldn’t recommend anyone seek out one of the 50 copies that there are of this one just to read Spencer’s work.

But if the verse itself is uninspiring what Rosenwater describes as some introductory remarks are, to anyone with an interest in the man, hugely entertaining.

The verse itself, whatever I may think of it, must have proved popular as it was reprinted several times after 1898, most notably for Rosenwater as recently as 1985. Having clearly read every version of the verse he highlights the change in spelling of M’Dougal to M’Dougall and then McDougall, to the disappearance of four lines of the text, and variations on the way Spencer’s name is written, Thos. E or Thomas – it is a classic Rosenwater’s almost forensic attention to detail, and those introductory remarks are the making of this particular monograph.