Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales | Page 6

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 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 or 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 until
the pen is empty. When this takes place, a man for the purpose refills
its. As there are local advantages, an equitable distribution of places for
shearing has to be 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 half of the number; the other half 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 considered, 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 agricultural labour, they enjoy larger intervals
of leisure than is 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 frequent and 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. The idea is erroneous. The men reared in the cities on the
seaboard, living sedentary lives in shops, banks, or counting-houses,
are doubtless more or less pale and slight of form. So are they who live
under such 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
and beefsteaks since they could walk, and snuffed 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, 6 feet 4 inches 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 and like him with
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 settling disputes
with nature's weapons has taken root in Australia. It would 'gladden the
sullen souls' of the defunct gladiators to watch two lads, whose fathers
had never trodden England's soil, pull off their jackets and go to work
"hammer and tongs," with all the savage silence of the true island type.
It is now about 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, or tarred and feathered at the least. 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