Races in Warrnambool ... he [Paterson] then said he thought he could write some words to it. He then and there wrote the first verse. We tried it and thought it went well, so he then wrote the other verses." Similarly, in the early 1930s on ABC radio Paterson said: "The shearers staged a strike and Macpherson's woolshed at Dagworth was burnt down and a man was picked up dead ... Miss Macpherson used to play a little Scottish tune on a zither and I put words to it and called it Waltzing Matilda." The song itself was first performed on 6 April 1895 by Sir Herbert Ramsay, 5th Bart., at the North Gregory Hotel in Winton, Queensland. The occasion was a banquet for the Premier of Queensland. The song did not very quickly spread: an electronic search of hundreds of Australian newspaper titles between 1895 and 1901 reveals only one report of it being sung. However, the cultural critic, A.A. Phillips, born in 1900, recalled being taught it in his childhood. In February 2010, ABC News reported an investigation by barrister Trevor Monti that the death of Hoffmeister was more akin to a gangland assassination than to suicide. The same report asserts, "Writer Matthew Richardson says the song was most likely written as a carefully worded political allegory to record and comment on the events of the shearers' strike." Alternative theories Several alternative theories for the origins or meaning of "Waltzing Matilda" have been proposed since the time it was written. Still, most experts now essentially agree on the details outlined above. Some oral stories collected during the twentieth century claimed that Paterson had merely modified a pre-existing bush song, but there is no evidence for this. In 1905, Paterson himself published a book of bush ballads he had collected from around Australia entitled Old Bush Songs, with nothing resembling "Waltzing Matilda" in it. Nor do any other publications or recordings of bush ballads include anything to suggest it preceded Paterson. Meanwhile, manuscripts from the time the song originated indicate the song's origins with Paterson and Christina Macpherson, as do their own recollections and other pieces of evidence. There has been speculation about the relationship "Waltzing Matilda" bears to a British song, "The Bold Fusilier" or "The Gay Fusilier" (also known as "Marching through Rochester", referring to Rochester in Kent and the Duke of Marlborough), a song sung to