\'Shearing begins to-morrow!\' These apparently simple words were spoken by Hugh Gordon, the manager of Anabanco Station, in the district of Riverina, in the colony of New South Wales, one Monday morning in the month of August. The utterance had its significance to every member of a rather extensive corps dramatique, awaiting the industrial drama about to be performed.
A low sandhill, a few years since, had looked out over a sea of grey plains, covered partly with grass, partly with salsiferous bushes and herbs. Three huts built of the trunks of the pine and roofed with the bark of the box-tree, and a skeleton-looking cattle-yard with its high \'gallows\' (a rude timber arrangement whereon to hang slaughtered cattle), alone broke the monotony of the plain-ocean. A comparatively small herd of cattle, numbering two or three thousand, found more than sufficient pasturage during the short winter and spring, but were often compelled to migrate to mountain pastures when the precarious water-stores of the \'Run\' were dried up. But, at most, half-a-dozen stock-riders and station hands were ever needed for the purpose of managing the herd, so inadequate in number and profitable occupation to this vast area of grazing country.
But a little later, one of the chiefs of the pastoral interest—a shepherd king, so to speak—of shrewdness, energy, and capital—had seen, approved of, and purchased the Crown lease of this waste kingdom. As if by magic, the scene changed. Gangs of navvies appeared, wending their way across the silent plain. Dams were made, wells were dug. Tons of fencing-wire 297were dropped on the sand by long lines of teams which never ceased arriving. Sheep by thousands and tens of thousands came grazing and cropping up to the erstwhile lonely sandhill—now swarming with blacksmiths, carpenters, engineers, fencers, shepherds, bullock-drivers—till the place looked like a fair on the borders of Tartary.
Meanwhile everything was moving with calculated force and cost, under the \'reign of law.\' The seeming expense illustrated the economic truth of doing all necessary work at once, rather than by instalments. One hundred men for one day, rather than one man for a hundred days. Results began to demonstrate themselves. Within twelve months the dams were full, the wells sending up their far-fetched, priceless water, the wire-fences completed, the shepherds gone, and a hundred and seventy thousand sheep were cropping the herbage of Anabanco. Tuesday was the day fixed for the actual commencement of the momentous, almost solemn transaction—the pastoral Hegira, so to speak, as the time of most station events is calculated with reference to it, as happening before or after shearing. But before the first shot is fired which tells of the battle begun, what raids and skirmishes, what reconnoitring and vedette duty must take place!
First arrives the cook-in-chief to the shearers, with two assistants, to lay in a few provisions for the week\'s consumption of seventy able-bodied men. Now the cook of a large shearing shed is a highly paid and irresponsible official. He is chosen and provided by the shearers themselves. Payment is generally arranged on the scale of half-a-crown a head weekly from each shearer. For this sum he contracts to provide punctual and effective cooking, paying out of his own pocket as many marmitons as may be needful for that end, and must satisfy the taste of his exacting and fastidious employers.
In the present case he confers with the storekeeper, Mr. de Vere, a young gentleman of aristocratic connections, who is thus gaining an excellent practical knowledge of the working of a large station; and to this end has the store-keeping department entrusted to him during shearing.
He is not, perhaps, quite fit for a croquet party as he stands now, with a flour-scoop in one hand and a pound of tobacco in the other. But he looks like a man at work, also like a gentleman, as he is. \'Jack the Cook\' thus addresses him:
298\'Now, Mr. de Vere, I hope there\'s not going to be any humbugging about my rations and things. The men are all up in their quarters, and as hungry as free selectors. They\'ve been a-payin\' for their rations for ever so long, and of course, now shearin\'s on, they\'re good for a little extra.\'
\'All right, Jack,\' returns De Vere good-humouredly; \'your order was weighed out and sent away before breakfast. You must have missed the cart. Here\'s the list. I\'ll read it out to you—three bags flour, half a bullock, two bags sugar, a chest of tea, four dozen of pickles, four dozen of jam, two gallons of vinegar, five lbs. pepper, a bag of salt, plates, knives, forks, ovens, frying-pans, saucepans, iron pots, and about a hundred other things. You\'re to return all the cooking things safe, or pay for them, mind that! You don\'t want anything more, do you? Got enough for a regiment of cavalry, I should think.\'
\'Well, I don\'t know, sir. There won\'t be much left in a week if the weather holds good,\' makes answer the chief, as one who thought nothing too stupendous to be accomplished by shearers; \'but I knew I\'d forgot something. As I\'m here, I\'ll take a few dozen boxes of sardines, and a case of pickled salmon. The boys likes \'em, and, murder alive! haven\'t we forgot the plums and currants; a hundredweight of each, Mr. de Vere. They\'ll be crying out for plum-duff and currant-buns for the afternoon, and bullying the life out of me if I haven\'t a few trifles like. It\'s a hard life, surely, a shearers\' cook. Well, good-day, sir, you have \'em all down in the book.\'
Lest the reader should imagine that the rule of Mr. Gordon at Anabanco was a reign of luxury and that waste which tendeth to penury, let him be aware that shearers in Riverina are paid at a certain rate, usually that of one pound per hundred sheep shorn. They agree, on the other hand, to pay for all supplies consumed by them, at certain prices fixed before the shearing agreement is signed. Hence it is entirely their own affair whether their mess bills are extravagant or economical. They can have everything within the rather wide range of the station store—patés de foie gras, ortolans, roast ostrich, novels, top-boots, double-barrelled guns, if they like to pay for them; with one exception—no wine, no spirits! Neither are they permitted to bring these stimulants \'on to the ground\' for their private use. Grog at shearing? 299Matches in a powder-mill! It\'s very sad and bad; but our Anglo-Saxon industrial champion cannot be trusted with the fire-water. Navvies, men-of-war\'s men, soldiers, and shearers—fine fellows all. But though the younger men might only drink in moderation, the majority of the elders are utterly without self-control, once in the front of temptation. And wars, \'wounds without cause,\' hot heads, shaking hands, delay, and bad shearing, would be the inevitable result of spirits, à la discrétion. So much is this a matter of certainty from experience, that a clause is inserted and cheerfully signed in most shearing agreements, \'that any man getting drunk or bringing spirits on to the station during shearing, loses the whole of the money earned by him.\' The men know that the restriction is for their benefit, as well as for the interest of the master, and join in the prohibition heartily.
Let us give a glance at the small army of working-men assembled at Anabanco—one out of hundreds of stations in the colony of New South Wales, ranging from 100,000 sheep downwards. There are seventy shearers; about fifty washers, including the men connected with the steam-engine, boilers, bricklayers, etc.; ten or twelve boundary riders, whose duty it is to ride round the large paddocks, seeing that the fences are intact, and keeping a general look-out over the condition of the sheep; three or four overseers; half-a-dozen young gentlemen acquiring a practical knowledge of sheep-farming, or, as it is generally phrased, \'colonial experience,\' a comprehensive expression enough; a score or so of teamsters, with a couple of hundred horses or bullocks waiting for the high-piled wool-bales, which are loaded up and sent away almost as soon as shorn; wool-sorters, pickers-up, pressers, yardsmen, extra shepherds. It may easily be gathered from this outline what an \'army with banners\' is arrayed at Anabanco. While statistically inclined, it may be added that the cash due for the shearing alone (less the mess-bill) amounts to ￡17,000; for the washing (roughly), ￡400, exclusive of provisions consumed, hutting, wood, water, cooking, etc. Carriage of wool, ￡1500. Other hands from ￡30 to ￡40 per week. All of which disbursements take place within eight to twelve weeks after the shears are in the first sheep.
Tuesday arrives, \'big with fate.\' As the sun tinges the far sky-line the shearers are taking a slight refection of coffee 300and currant-buns, to enable them to withstand the exhausting interval between six A.M. and eight o\'clock, when serious breakfast occurs. Shearers diet themselves on the principle that the more they eat the stronger they must be. Digestion, as preliminary to muscular development, is left to take its chance. They certainly do get through a tremendous amount of work. The whole frame is at its utmost tension, early and late. But the preservation of health is due to natural strength of constitution rather than to their profuse and unscientific diet. Half an hour after sunrise Mr. Gordon walks quietly into the vast building which contains the sheep and their shearers—called \'the shed,\' par excellence. Everything is in perfect cleanliness and order. The floor swept and smooth, with its carefully planed boards of pale yellow aromatic pine. Small tramways, with baskets for the fleeces, run the wool up to the wool-tables, superseding the more general plan of handpicking. At each side of the shed-floor are certain small areas, four or five feet square, such space being found by experience to be sufficient for the postures and gymnastics practised during the shearing of a sheep. Opposite each square is an aperture, communicating with a long, narrow, paled yard, outside of the shed. Through this each man pops his sheep when shorn, where he remains in company with the others shorn by the same hand, until counted out. This being done by the overseer or manager, supplies a check upon hasty, unskilful work. The body of the woolshed, floored with battens placed half an inch apart, is filled with the woolly victims. This enclosure is subdivided into minor pens, of which each fronts the place of two shearers, who catch from it till the pen is empty. When this takes place, a man detailed for the purpose refills it. As there are local advantages, an equal distribution of places is made by lot.
On every subdivision stands a shearer, as Mr. Gordon walks, with an air of calm authority, down the long aisle. Seventy men, chiefly in their prime, the flower of the working-men of the colony, they are variously gathered. England, Ireland, and Scotland are represented in the proportion of one-third of the number; the balance is composed of native-born Australians.
Among these last—of pure Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Celtic descent—are to be seen some of the finest men, physically 301considered, the race is capable of producing. Taller than their British-born brethren, with softer voices and more regular features, they inherit the powerful frames and unequalled muscular development of the breed. Leading lives chiefly devoted to agriculture, they enjoy larger intervals of leisure than are permissible to the labouring classes of Europe. The climate is mild and favourable to health. They have been accustomed from childhood to abundance of the best food; opportunities of intercolonial travel are common. Hence the Anglo-Australian labourer, without, on the one hand, the sharpened eagerness which marks his Transatlantic cousin, has yet an air of independence and intelligence, combined with a natural grace of movement, unknown to the peasantry of Britain.
An idea is prevalent that the Australians are, as a race, physically inferior to the British. It is asserted that they grow too fast, tend to height and slenderness, and do not possess adequate stamina and muscle. This idea is erroneous. The men reared in the cities on the sea-boards, living sedentary lives in shops or counting-houses, are often pallid and slight of form. Such are they who live under similar conditions all over the world. But those youngsters who have followed the plough on the upland farms, or lived a wilder life on the stations of the far interior; who have had their fill of wheaten bread, chops, and steaks since they could walk, and sniffed up the free bush breezes from infancy, they are men—
Stout of heart and ready of hand,
As e\'er drove prey from Cumberland
—a business, I may remark, at which many of them would have distinguished themselves.
Take Abraham Lawson, as he stands there in a natural and unstudied attitude, six feet four in his stockings, wide-chested, stalwart, with a face like that of a Greek statue. Take Billy May, fair-haired, mild, insouciant, almost languid, till you see him at work. Then, again, Jack Windsor, handsome, saucy, and wiry as a bull-terrier; like him, with a strong natural inclination for the combat; good for any man of his weight or a trifle over, with the gloves or without.
It is curious to note how the old English practice of 302settling disputes with nature\'s weapons has taken root in Australia. It would \'gladden the sullen souls of defunct gladiators\' to watch two lads, whose fathers had never trodden Britain\'s soil, pull off their jackets, and go to work \'hammer and tongs\' with the savage silence of the true island type.
It is now seven o\'clock. Mr. Gordon moves forward. As he does so, every man leans towards the open door of the pen, in front of which he stands. The bell sounds. With the first stroke each one of the seventy men has sprung upon a sheep; has drawn it out, placed its head across his knee, and is working his shears, as if the \'last man out\' was to be flogged. Four minutes—James Steadman, who learned last year, has shorn down one side of his sheep; Jack Holmes and Gundagai Bill are well down the other side of theirs; when Billy May raises himself with a jerking sigh, and releases his sheep, perfectly clean—shorn from the nose to the heels, through the aperture of his separate enclosure. With the same effort apparently he calls out \'Wool!\' and darts upon another sheep. Drawing this second victim across his knee, he buries his shear-point in the long wool of its neck. A moment later (a lithe, eager boy having gathered up fleece number one and tossed it into the tram-basket) he is half-way down its side, the wool hanging in one fleece like a great glossy mat, before you have done wondering whether he did really shear the first sheep, or whether he had not a ready-shorn one in his coat sleeve, like a conjurer. By this time Lawson and Windsor, Jack Holmes and Gundagai Bill are \'out,\' or finished, and the cry of \'Wool! wool!\' seems to run continuously up and down the long aisles of the shed, like a single note upon some rude instrument. Now and then the refrain is varied by \'Tar!\' being shouted instead, when a piece of skin is snipped off as well as the wool. Great healing properties are attributed to this extract in the shed. And if a shearer slice off a piece of flesh from his own person, as occasionally happens, he gravely anoints it with the universal remedy, and considers that the onus then lies with Providence, there being no more that man can do. Though little time is lost, the men are by no means up to the speed which they will attain in a few days, when in full practice and training. Their nerve and muscle will be then, so to speak, 303at concert-pitch, while sheep after sheep will be shorn with a precision and celerity almost magical to the unprofessional observer.
The reader may here be informed that speed and completeness of denudation are the grand desiderata in shearing. The employer thinks principally of the latter, the shearer of the former. To adjust the proportion equitably is one of the incomplete aspirations which torment humanity. Hence the contest—old as human society—between labour and capital.
This is the first day. According to old-established custom, a kind of truce obtains. It is before the battle—the salut, when no hasty word or too demonstrative action can be suffered by the canons of good taste. Red Bill, Flash Jack, Jem the Scooper, and other roaring blades, more famous for expedition than faithful manipulation, are shearing to-day with a painstaking precision, as of men to whom character is everything. Mr. Gordon marches softly up and down, regarding the shearers with a paternal and gratified expression, occasionally hinting at slight improvements of style, or expressing unqualified approval, as a sheep is turned out shaven rather than shorn. All goes on well. Nothing is heard but expressions of goodwill and enthusiasm for the general welfare. It is a triumph of the dignity of labour.
One o\'clock. Mr. Gordon moved to the bell and sounded it. At the first stroke several men on their way to the pens stopped abruptly, and began to put on their coats. One fellow of an alert nature had just finished his sheep and was sharpening his shears, when his eye caught Mr. Gordon\'s form in close proximity to the final bell. With a bound like a wild-cat, he reached the pen and drew out his sheep a bare second before the first stroke, amidst the laughter and congratulations of his comrades. Another man had his hand on the pen-gate at the same instant, but by the Median law was compelled to return sheepless. He was cheered, but ironically. Those whose sheep were in an unfinished stage quietly completed them, the others moving off to the dinner, where the board literally smoked with abundance. An hour passed. The meal was concluded; the smoke was over; and the more careful men were back in the shed sharpening their shears by two o\'clock. Punctually at that hour the bell repeated its summons da 304capo. The warm afternoon gradually lengthened its shadows; the shears clicked in tireless monotone; the pens filled and became empty. The wool-presses yawned for the mountain of fleeces which filled the bins in front of them, divided into various grades of excellence, and continuously disgorged them, neatly, cubically packed and branded.
At six o\'clock the bell brought the day\'s work to a close. The sheep of each man were counted in his presence, and noted down with scrupulous care, the record being written in full and hung up for public inspection in the shed next day. This important ceremony over, master and men, manager, labourers, and supernumeraries betook themselves to their separate abodes, with such avoidance of delay that in five minutes not a soul was left in or near the great building lately so busy and populous, except the boys who were sweeping up the floor. The silence of ages seems to fall and settle upon it.
Next morning at a rather earlier hour every man is at his post. Business is meant decidedly. Now commences the delicate and difficult part of the superintendence which keeps Mr. Gordon at his post in the shed nearly from daylight to dark for from eight to ten weeks. During the first day he has formed a sort of gauge of each man\'s temper and workmanship. For now and henceforth the natural bias of each shearer will appear. Some try to shear too fast, and in their haste shear badly. Some are rough and savage with the sheep, which do occasionally kick and become unquiet at critical times, and, it must be confessed, are provoking enough. Some shear fairly and handsomely to a superficial eye, but commit the unpardonable offence of \'leaving wool on.\' Some are deceitful, shearing carefully when overlooked, but \'racing\' and otherwise misbehaving directly the eye of authority is diverted. These and many other tricks and defects require to be noted and abated, quietly but firmly, by the manager of the shed—firmly, because evil would develop and spread ruinously if not checked; quietly, because immense loss might be incurred by a strike. Shearing differs from other work in this wise—it is work against time, more especially in Riverina. If the wool be not off the backs of the sheep before November, all sorts of drawbacks and destructions supervene. The spear-shaped grass seeds, specially formed as if in special 305collusion with the evil one, hasten to bury themselves in the wool and even in the flesh of the tender victims. Dust rises in red clouds from the unmoistened, betrampled meadows, so lately verdurous and flower-spangled. From snowy white to an unlovely bistre turn the carefully-washed fleeces, causing anathemas from overseers and depreciation from brokers. All these losses of temper, trouble, and money become inevitable if shearing be protracted, it may be, beyond a given week.
Hence, as in harvest with a short allowance of fair weather, discipline must be tempered with diplomacy. Lose your temper, and be over particular; off go Billy May, Abraham Lawson, and half-a-dozen of your best men, making a weekly difference of two or three thousand sheep for the remainder of the shearing. Can you not replace them? Not so! Every shed in Riverina will be hard at work during this present month of September and for every hour of October. Till that time not a shearer will come to your gate, except, perhaps, one or two useless, characterless men. Are you to tolerate bad workmanship? Not that either. But try all other means with your men before you resort to harshness; and be quite certain that your sentence is just, and that you can afford the defection.
So our friend Mr. Gordon, wise from tens of thousands of shorn sheep that have been counted out past his steady eye, criticises temperately but watchfully. He reproves sufficiently, but no more, any glaring fault; makes his calculation as to who are really bad shearers, and can be discharged without loss to the commonwealth; or who shear fairly and can be coached up to a decent average. One division, slow, and good only when slow, have to be watched lest they emulate \'the talent,\' and so come to grief. Then \'the talent\' has to be mildly admonished from time to time lest they force the pace, set a bad example, and lure the other men on to \'racing.\' This last leads to slovenly shearing, ill-usage of the sheep, and general dissatisfaction.
Tact, temper, patience, and firmness are each and all necessary attributes in that captain of industry who has the delicate and responsible task of superintending a large woolshed. Hugh Gordon had shown all in such proportion as would have made him a distinguished person anywhere, had 306fortune not adjusted for him this particular profession. Calm with the consciousness of strength, he was considerate in manner as in nature, until provoked by glaring dishonesty or incivility. Then the lion part of his nature awoke, so that it commonly went ill with the aggressor. As this was matter of public report, he had little occasion to spoil the repose of his bearing. Day succeeds day, and for a fortnight the machinery goes on smoothly and successfully. The sheep arrive at an appointed hour by detachments and regiments at the wash-pen. They depart thence, like good boys on Saturday night, redolent of soap and water, and clean to a fault—entering the shed white and flossy as newly-combed poodles, to emerge on the way back to their pasturage, slim, delicate, agile, with a bright black A legibly branded with tar on their paper-white skins.
The Anabanco world—stiffish but undaunted—is turning out of bed one morning. Ha! what sounds are these? and why does the room look so dark? Rain, as I\'m alive! \'Hurrah!\' says Master Jack Bowles, one of the young gentlemen. He is learning (more or less) practical sheep-farming, preparatory to having (one of these days) an Anabanco of his own. \'Well, this is a change, and I\'m not sorry, for one,\' quoth Mr. Jack. \'I\'m stiff all over. No one can stand such work long. Won\'t the shearers growl? No shearing to-day, and perhaps none to-morrow either.\' Truth to tell, Mr. Bowles\' sentiments are not confined to his ingenuous bosom. Some of the shearers grumble at being stopped, \'just as a man was earning a few shillings.\' Those who are in top pace and condition don\'t like it. But to many of the rank and file—working up to and a little beyond their strength—with whom swelled wrists and other protests of nature are becoming apparent, it is a relief. They are glad of the respite. At dinner-time all the sheep in the sheds, put in overnight in anticipation of such a contingency, are reported shorn. All hands then are idle for the rest of the day. The shearers dress and avail themselves of various resources. Some go to look at their horses, now in clover or its equivalent, in the Riverina graminetum. Some play cards, others wash or mend their clothes. A large proportion of the Australians, having armed themselves with paper, envelopes, and a shilling\'s worth of stamps from the store, bethink 307themselves of neglected or desirable correspondents. Many a letter for Mrs. Leftalone, Wallaroo Creek, or Miss Jane Sweetapple, Honeysuckle Flat, as the case may be, will find its way into the post-bag to-morrow. A pair of the youngsters are having a round or two with the gloves; while to complete the variety of recreations compatible with life at a woolshed, a selected troupe are busy in the comparative solitude of that building, at a rehearsal of a tragedy and a farce, with which they intend, the very next rainy day, to astonish the population of Anabanco.
At the home station a truce to labour\'s \'alarms\' is proclaimed, except in the case and person of Mr. De Vere. So far is he from participation in the general holiday, that he finds the store thronged with shearers, washers, and \'knockabout men,\' who, being let loose, think it would be nice to go and buy something. He therefore grumbles slightly at having no rest like other people.
\'That\'s all very fine,\' says Mr. Jack Bowles, who, seated on a case, is smoking a large meerschaum and mildly regarding all things; \'but what have you got to do when we\'re all hard at work at the shed?\' with an air of great importance and responsibility.
\'That\'s right, Mr. Bowles,\' chimes in one of the shearers; \'stand up for the shed. I never see a young gentleman work as hard as you do.\'
\'Bosh!\' growls De Vere; \'as if anybody couldn\'t gallop about from the shed to the wash-pen, and carry messages, and give half of them wrong! Why, Mr. Gordon said the other day he should have to take you off and put on a Chinaman—that he couldn\'t make more mistakes.\'
\'All envy and malice and t\'other thing, De Vere, because you think I\'m rising in the profession,\' returns the good-natured Bowles. \'Mr. Gordon\'s going to send 20,000 sheep, after shearing, to the Lik Lak paddock, and he said I should go in charge.\'
\'Charge be hanged!\' laughs De Vere (with two very bright-patterned Crimean shirts, one in each hand, which he offers to a tall young shearer for inspection). \'There\'s a well there, and whenever either of the two men, of whom you\'ll have charge, gets sick or runs away, you\'ll have to work the whim in his place, till another man\'s sent out, if it\'s a month.\'
This appalling view of station promotion rather startles Mr. 308Bowles, who applies himself to his meerschaum, amid the ironical comments of the shearers. However, not easily daunted, or \'shut up,\' according to the more familiar station phrase, he rejoins, after a brief interval of contemplation, that \'accidents will happen, you know, De Vere, my boy—apropos of which moral sentiment, I\'ll come and help you in your dry-goods business; and then, look here, if you get ill or run away, I\'ll have a profession to fall back upon.\' This is held to be a Roland of sufficient pungency for De Vere\'s Oliver. Every one laughed. And the two youngsters betook themselves to a humorous puffing of the miscellaneous contents of the store: tulip beds of gorgeous Crimean shirts, boots, books, tobacco, canvas slippers, pocket-knives, Epsom salts, pipes............