OVER-CIVILISATION.

Dunstan Times, Issue 634, 12 June 1874, Page 3

OVER-CIVILISATION.

—o—(Graphic.) 'The word “ squatter,” which in Australia hears aspooial and highly respectable signification, lias in this country always been regarded as a term of reproach. Still, in former days, when unenclosed lands were more abundant than they are at present, squatters, if not viewed exactly with favor by squires and farmers, were, at any rate, tolerated. lu lependent of ithe wandering tribes of “ Egyptians.” who bad no fixed habitation, there was scarcely a common indbe country without one or more rudely-constructed huts upon it, inhabited by per sons of vagaTuondash tastes, who paid no rent, and depended upon their sustenance in a great measure upon*the bounty of Nature. These sort of people rarely ■cared about hard, steady work, but they were skilled fishers, unerring marksmen, cunning setters of snares, they wore well acquainted with the habits of wild creatures, they knew every hill and dale, and covert and foot-track in the neighborhood ; in short, they were by no means ill educated specimens of humanity, for, though they could rarely read or write, they had attentively studied 'the Book of Nature,:and had 'carefully exercised-their bodily faculties. The worst of such people as these is, that, like -Ileft Indians and ’other persons of nomad tastes, they require a good deal of elbow-room for their proper development, and elbow-room in 'this densely-peopled island is becoming a very costly commodity, only to be attain'd in perfection by persons who can afford to buy or rent deer forests. The old■fashioued squatter has in these days he’come an anachronism, anil a man might as well attempt bull-bailing, or knocker'wrenching, or painting Ids body with alternate stripes of f;3ho Oxford anil Cambridge colors, as indulge imsueh an obsolete amusement as squatting on a modern English common. Our commons are no burger solitary M’astcs, hut rather recreation grounds, which are only preserved by legislative enactments from being converted by enterprising speculators into eligible sites for villas. One is almost -.<mrprised, therefore, to find that a certain Mr Lawrence, with ids wife and children (eight persons in all, the same as Noah had in the Ark), has been able for three years to squat ■on Orookham Common, in defiance •<!? the ■authorities. At last, however, they bore •clown on Mr Lawrence onUhe’sanitary tack —it seems that he and his family were not inhaling their legal quantum of oxygen--ho M - as routed, his shanty was pulled clown, and his wife, with much reluctance, accepted tickets for the Union Workhouse. People of gipsy-like tastes may possibly sympathise with Mrs Lawrence, and prefer damp straw and liberty to the monotonous luxury of the New Poor Law Palace, but such i eople are not fit to live in the latterdialf of tire nineteenth century. It is worth while hinting, however, do these zealous sanatarians, that such an existence as that of the Lawrences, with all its apparent wretchedness, is really nit so unwholesome as that of the mass of citypent persons, who are slowly poisoned by sedentary work, hot rooms bui air, and -i a tcki ■ iu rs.