ING SQUATTERS IN QUEENSLAND.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 542, 8 July 1869, Page 4

ING SQUAT TERS IN QUEENSLAND.

A writer in a London sporting contemporary, in an article on Queensland, gives a description, of which the subjoined is an extract, of an amusing class of " new chums" there : — " We were at once introduced to the drones, or sucking squatters, that are always to be found hanging about such large stations— a number of useless young men from England, who, with monetary expectations, are the pride and glory of themselves for the faultlessness of their costume in boots, belts, and breeches, whilst they are the sly laughing-stock of all real working bushmen. One young fellow with a besird and splendid moustache lay on the sofa in boots, spurs, belt, pouch, bowie-knife, and breeches, with an elaborate meerschaum pipe in his mouth, smoking strong negrohead tobacc^ to his excessive inconvenience, but he wished to appear fond of it. His time was passed in shifting his quarters from the couch to his bedroom, in order tv find a cool seat, for the weather was excessively warm. In his bedroom was a collection fit for any museum, and enough stuff to fit out half a dozen exploring parties, in the shape of guns, rifles, revolvers, pistols, canteens, spurs, saddles, bridles, packs, holsters, saddlebags, and valises, with leather suites, gaiters, shirts, socks, and tronsers, collars by the gross, automaton or magic qooking apparatus, pots for boiling water with spirits, and all the numerous useless paraphernalia of young men with ample means, who have never done a hand's turn in their lives. So fond mammas and liberal fathers are in the habit of starting their cherished offspring to seek their fortunes at the Antipodes, where we are all supposed to be destitute of everything except the pelt nature has wrapped us in. All day our friend tried to smoke, lighting and relighting his pipe, which was evidently a • great nuisance to him, but must be kept going, for fear people should take him for a uew chum — of whom there could not be the slightest doubt. When not drawing at his pipe he oursed the wretched country into which it had been his misfortune to be cast, or wrote highly imaginative letters to his mamma, detailing the hardships he supposed he suffered in this miserable colony. Whilst in conversation, the overseer assured us, in speaking of the prospects of the new chums, that this one, during the twelve months he had been at Yandilla, had never visited a single station, and could not count the rams, let alone a flock of sheep, if it was to save his life. But being in expectation of a capital in thousands, all this was tolerated, and a great deal more, taking into consideration that he was a good tempered fellow, and not a bad partner at whist. The son of a military officer, he could talk of the mess, play billiards, and possessed a fund of other useless accomplishments for a colonist — a style of education that never succeeds when men are left to their own resources; but such persons are always tolerated because of their capital, which sooner or later falls into some sharper man's pocket. But, whilst this eliment so rarely succeeds, naval and seafaring men, more in the habit of understanding and coming in contact with the raw material of human nature— dealing with men in the rough — are as generally successful as the be-breechloaded, patent meerschaum pipe gentlemen make a mess of it.