Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales | Page 5

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-bye, sir, you have 'em all down in the book."
Lest the reader should imagine that the role of Mr Gordon at Anabanco was a reign of luxury and that waste which tendeth to penury, let him be aware that all 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 anything within the rather wide range of the station store. PATES 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 grounds" for their private use. Grog at shearing? Matches in a powder-mill! It's very sad and bad; but our Anglo-Saxon industrial or defensive 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 and the older men 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 results of spirits A LA DISCRETION. 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 and the like; ten or twelve boundary-riders, whose duty it is to ride round the large paddocks, seeing that the fences are all 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 two 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 1700 pounds; for the washing (roughly), 400 pounds, exclusive of provisions consumed, hutting, wood, water, cooking. Carriage of wool 1500 pounds. Other hands from 30 pounds to 40 pounds per week. All of which disbursements take place within from eight to twelve weeks after the shears are in the first sheep.
Tuesday comes "big with fate." As the sun tinges the far skyline, the shearers are taking a slight refection of coffee and currant buns to enable them to withstand the exhausting interval between six and eight o'clock, when the serious breakfast occurs. Shearers always 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 their 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 hand picking. 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 to each square is an aperture, communicating with a long narrow paled yard, outside of the shed. Through this each man pops