"CATTLE DUFFING" IN AUSTRALIA
THSEVES HEAPING A ttIGH 'HARVEST;. The cattle duffer is reaping a rich harvest in the Casino district just now (writes the Casino correspondent of the "Sunday Times"). Of course, ttockowners here, as everywhere eke, have always suffered more or less from the depredations of cattle thieves, but not to anything like the same degree asi at present. As the rewards of a successful raid are now greater than they have been for some time past, men are prepared to take bigger risks than they would under less favourable circumstances. Tempted by the high prices ruling for all classes of stock, and emboldened by the success i hat has resulted from previous raids, they now appear to be utterly regardless of consequences, and to treat with contempt the efforts made to catoh them. As a matter of fact, the risk is by no means commensurate with the gain. A great many of the\>ld, reliable station hands have enlisted, and land-holders have often to employ lees' dependable men. Even this class of labour ie scarce and difficult to obtain, and the men do not take the same interest in their employers' welfare as did their predecessors. This fact makes the work of the cattle thieves. much easier. An instance was Tolated the other day of how a well-known squatter, with a -station only a few miles from town, lost eight fat bullocks from under his nose, ao to speak. Ho had the animals brought into the homestead paddock, intending to have thon sent away for sale in a few days. It was a fairly large paddock, with only one exit, to the main rond, and that close by the homestead itself. Yet within two days the animals had disappeared. They vani_shed_ as if thoy had evaporated , into thin air. But, impudent and resourceful ;.s the thieves were in tliis case, they Were outdone in audacity by others a short while ago One day there was a big cattle sale in the town-one of those periodical sales to wTifih stock are brought in from al quarters of the district to be auctioned. A farmer, whose l.and.iij partly within-he municipal boundary/brought in two bullocks, and left them in the. hotel yard whilst he had his dinner intending to take them to the saleyards afterwards. A game of billiards followed the dinner and then the owner bethought himself to take the cattle along. But they had rone Several men standing about had feen the animals being put in but they had not. seen them taken out. thought that they might have iiimned the fence, and then made For home- but they had not. There was onlTone mounted policeman in the town, the secant and the black tracker having gone out on a man-lnmhng expediHnn The trooper was faced with an almost impossible job. There were many mTn .lriviU cattle to and from th-.sole that day in twos and threes and l)isß|>r mob?' and it seemed to him Miat in never heard of his bullocks again.
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Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 40, 10 November 1917, Page 3
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504"CATTLE DUFFING" IN AUSTRALIA Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 40, 10 November 1917, Page 3
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