CLEAVING BLADES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 29, 4 February 1913, Page 2

CLEAVING BLADES

THIRTY SHILLINGS THIRTY YEARS AGO FROM FOOTMAN TO PIG-BUTCHERING HOW YANKEES CAME TO GLEBE. (By "The Watcher.") You may, associating them in your impetuous fancy with pithed and sullen bulls dripping from the knife, with frenzied sheep and fluttering l'ambs--< ' you may, I say, conceive these strong, confident killers to be fierce s untamable men, arrogantly brutal, "feckless, reckless beings, altogether as fierce as their work. That would be a grave and a .public misconception of an enduring class of men who do this awful work because it is more remunerative th&n such quieter avocfitkms &g keeping fowls or hoeing turnips. Sensitive people, no doubtj could be more tolerant -of one . who delved, among turnips, for it must boctmbedeti that it Would" require the imagination of an ..enraptured Socialist to associate brutality with turnips' or callousness with' white Leghorns. Howciv" ei< ' • ■ 1 In the bad old days, before there were Arbitration Courts and broken agreements, it cdn hardly be dottbted but that "the cortjurings of the timorous could often have been realised. ,It is admitted easily by old hands these days that the gehtle body of slaughtermen includ' ed many hard drinkers, hard swearers ■hard "livers" generally. So with the shearers, s» with the isolated railway camps. But these boisterous ' feoula get fewer and fewer every season. On all sides there is a tehdency for the muchmißunder&lobd but masterful killers to toil like galley slaves -at the board "bo that ih the evening, oh Sundays and race days (say), they ttiay walk 'alttohg , their fellows well-groomed and a« godd as the next. - The old idea -of advertising their- calling .for- sheer- bra-yado^ on the same principle that a Bouver'ie street' ' thug expectorated on" ah oppo"hentj*s' boot for -trouble, 'is ''becoming fae"t dfe* crepit, and qualifying for the obsolete class. ; ■ . Permit me to- introduce onn such— a long-limbed t jowerful Australian who has been doing the sheds on either side the Tasmaii for- the past twenty .-years (more or less). Outside his work he is a healthy clean-skinned artisan, . independent and froward enough, to be likeable. Inside, at the board, he is counted a "ringer"— the big fellows who frequent the sheds at the back of Canterbury will understand. We were discussing quite dispassionately the trouble 6f the sheathed knives, and tlie fat lambs becoming overripe, and the luscious rapa wasted on mutton. His temper tf&s excellent; his manner easy. "I've had rather rotten luck." he said" quietly. "Here 1 get my poisoned finger right, and then— this thing arrives. And my wife's coming oVer by the next boat." "It looks like being up against it." I fflutmured sympathetically. • "Don't ww^y j I'll get something to do, you bet. I've never been 'stuck but once in ttiy life." j My glances expressed admiration. < Here was a man losing the salary of a. member of Parliament i. because he thought that earning wtis not comhi§hsurate with the 1 work; '• ' . Theh , he astounded , his autlifol'6. t 'I've been everything from a flunkey to .a. .New, Governor to a pig-but-cher." ••»•'"< f - .-•' '•"■"..

The smal] room shook with guffaws of a most derisive character We all well khew that in the off. season these fellows filled in tiMe at nawying and harvesting, and shearing, but a, footman to a Governor-^--We might have known better, rehiemberihg John Christian Watson, and a. miner who rose to the giddiest position in Australasia. Feeling it was necessity, he began the explanation. "It was the opening of a, troopers' memorial in Timaru, at a time when I was driving for n big livery stable," hp said. "Well, His Excellency was to have a splendid team of bays to tool him down, but a footman was 'aclting— they aie not numerous in Timaru. "So I climbed into the. glad togs, and up on the Seat/while my mate took the 'ribbons,' " detailed the raconteur. "I ct&rn't look anywhere but. right ahead of me. .It was my busy day. I don't remember pie j ing footman again, though f6r a long spell I was liveried coachman to Lady-——; of Christchm-ch - . -. ." We stnoked in siiencp— "flhd it was ftj bit li'ard for me, With tile governess and the family behind (the old lady was in shopping, perhaps)) -when a mate recognised me sittihg tight and propel 1 on the box, and poked faces at • me. br wanted' to have a 'chip.' " t ''And you?" queried the secretary. "I would nearly shake my head off trying tf> tell lu'm to go away, until he 'jerryed' to it," respOhded the optimist. Then a staunch vpterah took the stage, and spoke a. prologue which was to the effect that the slaughtermen must win out in the present struggle if they ohly hling together. He talked interestingly of Glebe Island (Sydney tfay) thirty years agoj of a strike, and the men who broke it; of a rate of 30s per hundred for mutton butchers. Glebe Island wan no glittering salodh with iced drinks and two straws pel* glass those days. The killers butchered as strettliously and swiftly as they then knew how for weekly wages, which ranged from £3 (are you listening, you beef butchers at Waitai'a and Ross River?) to £4 10s— in the latter' class that cheque was for none but the crack-a-jacks. .phe day the killers decided, after several heaH«to-heairt talks, that they Were deserving of more money. They stood tip* to the bosies and ekpreesed that opinion emphatically. Capital dchied the truth of the- preposition, and there was a strike— even »b now. , The men' stuck to their guns. A> brilliant managerial head conceived the' idea of importing butchers fro^i America, and an order was sent- forward. The Aus' tralifttts stootl ro\iftcl and Waited. Overfrom 'Frisco they came, some forty Yankee knife>expertß (allegedly), to Jriah the boards on Glebe Island. Still content to wait, the Colonial slaughtermen did not set to and carve up the interlopers. "The beggars neither could nor, would work, * averred the veteran triumphantly. "There was a proper 'mess-up. They must have been the riffraff of the Atnprioah sheds, for they had no idea of killing m'titton. Ahd they' just -hated hard work. The. beef butchers were better fellows. They knew their job, but they, too, Were shy of slogging all day. ' The bossed, no better • off, acr&fcchefi their heads distracted. The Australians waited patiently, but they were beaten eventually. it was this way. . " When we thought we had them well gone, the" company brought in the Curr&ns—the old man and Mike, Jog, and PaWand-put them on contracts at 30s per hundred. That (\vas ,the»/Bnd .«Llis,," Bighed the grizzled butcheV. "Those fellows were too hot— too hot." f We must hold together.", he concluded, brftalruig back unexpectedly) from jthe earty J Bo.'.s,tt> tfebr-Uaty, 19t3. , , „ Will theyr ' . "' \ ."-