THE CONFESSIONS OF SUN DOWNER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1071, 3 November 1882, Page 4

THE CONFESSIONS OF SUN DOWNER.

It was a very hot day as we tolled along under the weight of our heavy swags, my mate and I. We were 1. oking for shearing, and we had heard at the last station tint thev started at T—within th« week. We hui ried on to get our names down. Numbers of swell shearers passed us on the r ad in regular bush style with packhmses, 1-ells and hobbles, quart potq <irc., making a rare rattle as they jogged merrily along, all making for the same goal. We had luck, and got our names down, and then we waited for sun-down to get the regulation pannikin of flour and bit of meat. The storekeeper, a six-foot Irishman, served them out as the sun got low, and many were the calls on him for hits of tobacco, or tea and sugar, but bis heart was hardened, and few of these calls were answered. We were all camped along the river hanks before shearing started, and at nighc the niddy glare of manv bright fires, with dark figures flitting hackwards and forwards before them, made a pleasing sight for those who arrived after nightfall at the c'ose of a long, weary day’s walk crossing the plains. r Jhe troubles are all over, for the time at least, when tlie billy is foiled, the tea and sugar thrown in, and the white damper drawn from the hot word ashes. After supper the pipes are lit, and the old hands tells yarns of days gone by, glorious stories of old times n the diggings, when gold was very plentitu). Then the blankets are unrolled, and the weaiy travellers drop off to sleep ; the. fires slowly go out, •leaving nothing but heaps of red ashes. Midni-.ht brings a great quiet; all through the bush nothing is heard but the croak of countless fiogs in the far off swamp ; now and then the wild, weird sound of the blacks holding high -corroboroe in their gunyalis bv the river is borne along through the nmht air, making the quiet seem all the greater as the echoes die away through the gloomy forest. We numbered 70 odd in the shed that year—a rough, rowdy lot, and no mistake. Our boss was a bit of a terror, too, and sacked the black sbeep amongst us right and left for the first two weeks. The managers give ns poor shearers a very bad name, and, indeed, not without cause in a number -yf-eases. A lot of really had -characters get together at nearly everv shed ;and gambling goes on ni lit and day. •I have se»-n as much as a hundred tpr-unds change hands in a very shoit time at a game ca’led “ heading them.” This is supposed to be a game of chance, but it -is often made otherwise by the use of doubleheaded crins called “nobs;” a coin wi hj two tails is called “ a grev.” They are made by filing down two coins and joining them togidher Numbers of them are manufactured by the old hands ; in fact, it is quite a trade with some of them, as it inquires a • certain amount of skill and a large emount of roguery combined to turn them out well. Next to the nrm over the board, the storekeeper has, I think, the hardest times o' it, during a shearing season. Shearers are proverbially hard to deal with, and added to that they look upon a storekeeper as a kind of inferior animal. His requirements to make a success are many; hoshoulcl he a second -Job for patience, and on occasion should be able to lie freely with a good conscience. T have seen many of them grind their teeth when a shearer would keep them waiting half an hour at a stretch trying a new pair of shears •or taking stock of a tew Turkeystone. They will open and shut a -pair of shears 50 times, turn them over, and look clown the ed:e as many more, then add insult to injury by trying to beat down the price. The choice of a stone is equally heart-rend-ing; the woivying that a respectable Turkey stone gets at the hands of a shearec before he thinks of buying it is awful to contemplate. They si ait by rubbing a shilling up and down its surface five or six limes to see how hard it is, then it gets a lick, and an application of the business side of the shearer’s front teeth to try it still further. In rive cases out of ten it is banded back, and the storekeeper is told in s rict confidence and in emphatic language that it’s not worth a d We had the usual visitation of a parson. He arrived one atternoon and got leave from the manager of the shed to hold forth that nighc in the shearers’ hut. It is usual in such cases to get up a subscription for the good <«f the church. He did not wish for this, but was imperative about having a Bible, as he had forgotten his own. Our manager went round all the huts trying to get one. The search was fruitless; no swag held such a thing. An old prayerbook w r as fossicked out by someone and duly handed to the man of Clod as the nearest approach to the book required. The manager was rather put out about the scarcity of Bibles, but he consoled himself wuih th“ refi ction that the station had got *SO per cent of lambs, and that they would shear tlitee hundred thousand sh-cp. and ti n he settled himself down with a brave heart for threequarters of an hour of it. We did a long tramp through the Eiverina e-um-vy two years ago u looking for work.” This is another great hone o f contention between the squatter and working hands. Numbers of men go the rounds of the statijna, asking for work everywhere

without the remotest idea of ever do ing any. They always stick at th< price offered, and quote Mr So-and-s -. of the next station, who is giving double that amount' In fact, a' they require is supper at the squat ter’s ex pense, and getting that the} are satisfied. In these parts men of tins kind an known as “ Murrnmbidgee whalers.' They also act in the capacity ol flour inspectors for the stations on the rack. Should the flour at any place contain weevils or other foreign matters it is the fa’k of all the travellers’ huts for a 1m idred miles round. A few such bag* judiciously Served out will materially help in keeping down the flour bill, and at the same tin e will bring down a lot of heariy Australian curses on the head of their distributor. These old fellows also pride themselves much on their native sharpness in getting round the storekeeper. I have heard them telling yarns with great gusto of Low they had got rations two or three nights running, from the unsuspecting tea and sugar overseer. I k cw a storekeeper once who hit upon a happy way of knowi' g a man the second time ot asking He procured a pot of white pa nt, and as each man left the stove with his ra tions he splashed a little of the paint on his coat —if he hid one—or failing that, on his lack. 'lhis answered very well for a while, but he was found out at las*, and four indignant sundowners introduced him to the flour-bin, out of which he came a whiter and possibly a wiser man. He is the owner of a station now, but I am sure that many dry seasons have not eradicated that ni.lit from his memory.— S. S. in the Australasian.