more k'foops

I mentioned recently I was quite interested in K'foops. Mainly because this was a name my grandmother Mavis who grew up, I suppose, in the 1920s occasionally brought forth as a sort of silly name for a random person. I mentioned that 'Fred Nerk' parallel. I am not sure what it was all about. There are surely similar names but I can't think of any right now. Anyway, I did a quick search on K'foops just to see what else showed up. Nothing too special, I have to say. 

Here he is in Smiths Weekly for 5 August 1922 (p. 25).* Here's a use of his name in a mysterious item from the Broken Hill Barrier Miner 25 August 1923 p. 7. What on earth did people do for fun then:

And I have to say I don't really know what this (below from Smith's Weekly once again, this time 6 March 1926 p. 9) is about, I mean I know what it's about but I don't know why there has to be a 'Justice K'foops', but once again I imagine it's a kind of... rando silly name? Or maybe it's more than that? 

Trove says there are 5,614 mentions of 'K'foops' in Australian newspapers, surely most of those are misreadings of old newsprint by OCR (see below) but nevertheless it was obviously something of a phenomenon. The below is from the Mackay Mercury 4 March 1953 p. 2 and the one following from the same paper, 5 October 1953 p. 2. 

This is the most recent reference I can find to Mr. K'foops, from the Melbourne Age 4 September 1973 p, 28:

As for the earliest, I don't know, because when you do a search in Trove on 'k'foops' you get suggetions like: 'Ao equal aavin^ wm!,) be 'kvj uhrtndiuioc tho wortia ' Yeura f«; ? ant to 3jie«k of rigm^roUa mch u ... nei|tht---'irh V.* ^ tiutt tb«t thta will you, mh! n-t ^ 1 )?«» ? to o.^rl-».»k th? incideot. in *vw ' ^ ?till'. 

I did find this, which is from a speech(?) by Mr. Aikens the member for Mundingburra told the Qld Legislative Assembly on 25 October 1945:

Well it's hard to read that for the K'foopsness and not concentrate on the other elements of the hypothetical but, focus. 

Here's my current feel: the name K'foops was if not started by Smith's Weekly around 1922 certainly popularised by it at that time (SW itself began in 1919) and seemed to live on much longer in Queensland than anywhere else, the 1973 existence of Mr. K'foops in Ivanhoe notwithstanding. 

More news as it comes to hand.**

*BTW Alek Sass, who drew this cartoon, was dead within six months. I don't think there's a kurse of k'foops though. 

** I have more news. It will be with you soon enough. Clue: it has to do with 'Kerfoops'.