THE MODERN SHEARER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 15, 6 May 1871, Page 3

THE MODERN SHEARER.

The following lively sketch is from the " Peak Downs Telegram" ; —" Are you full-handed of shearers, Sir ?" is a question that greets many a super, managing partner, or overseer on his return from the run during these busy months of the squatters' harvest in Queensland. The speaker will be found, as a rule, superior to the run of general station hands. He is mostly quiet and unassuming in appearance—indeed, his flashness, if he has any, is reserved for the shearing floor—and dresses better than most other laborers in the country. . His travelling rig-ou t-'-for no man travels as much as the professional shearer—will generally be of the best, consistingof a good horse—often two or three, —with a wonderful array of saddlery and camping gear, and if he does not keep a packhorse, you may •note a swag of wonderful dimensions in front of him, encircling within the folds of a gaudy red blanket most of our shearer's worldly possessions, including a long and well-worn turkey stone, and sometimes, but not often, a favorite pair of shears, not quite used up, with which he cut so many sheep at so and-so's on the Comet. A very much more respectable individual than he used to be in the old outside days is the modern shearer. There is nothing mean about him, and he is generally manly enough, having some cotions for" me and my mate." That the dignity of the shearing profession may be kept up, Jie will generally refuse " the cove's" request to sign the agreement unless the others waiting in the shearers' hut do so also ; but the blarney as to price, &c, being over, the subject of our sketch, being spokesman, will exclaim to the mob—" Well, boys, what do you say.?" and away they sign, following each other very much like the sheep they are about to shear. Our shearer, too, is very difficult to please in the way of shears—they're either too strong, or they spring, or possess a tendency to lap. On the shearing-floor our man* is in his element. He is very social m his mob and between the pens, when he has done sharpening, discusses often, with much shrewdness, every topic of the day—including the changes of fortunes of employers, past and present. On commencing the pen our man will make an eager dart for the bare-bellied sheep. On being told that he must mend his hand aud shear better he will answer that " it's the wool rises after the shears." I never saw a shearer yet that didn't say so. He will sing out " tar" in the most domineering voice, showing the greatest contempt for the picker up and tar boy, and, in fact, has generally but little regard for the sheep he's shearing or the wool coming off it. Poor shearer's cook! no man living has such a job. Our shearer always grumbles at his cook; his appetite i is enormous, and the rush for the mid-! day dinner, especially if there's doughboys or plum duff, is alarming. For the rest, he is extremely hospitable to travellers of his own class ; the shearers'

hut is always open, and a bucket of tea every ready for the thirsty ; he will also subscribe for his sick mate, arid is generous when flush. A good shearer will shear on an average five hundred sheep a week and earn from £3 to £4 a Week clear throughout a season of from four to five months—less the time spent in travelling. Many of them drink hard and the season over, knock every farthing of their checks down at one of the hundred and one pubs, whose •' trade and good-will" is specially lambingdown our shearers.