The Rising of the Court | Page 5

bonds of matrimony to Mr Reginald Wells--(here follows a long account of the smart society wedding). The happy pair leave en route for Europe per the --- next Friday.
Jane Johnson, an old offender, again faced the music before Mr Isaacs, S.M., at the Central yesterday morning--(here follows a "humorous" report of the case).
Next time poor Mrs Johnson will leave en route for "Th' Island" and stay there three months.
The sisters join Mrs Johnson, who has some money and takes them to a favourite haunt and shouts for them--as she does for the boys sometimes. Their opinions on civilization are not to be printed.
Ginger and Wingy get off with the option, and, though the fine is heavy, it is paid. They adjourn with Boko Bill, and their politics are lurid.
Squinny Peters (plain drunk--five bob or the risin'), who is peculiar for always paying his fine, elects to take it out this time. It appears that the last time Squinny got five bob or the risin' he ante'd up the splosh like a man, and the court rose immediately, to Squinny's intense disgust. He isn't taking any chances this time.
Wild-Flowers-Charley, who recently did a fortnight, and has been out on bail, has had a few this morning, and, in spite of warnings from and promises to friends, insists on making a statement, though by simply pleading guilty he might get off easily. The statement lasts some ten minutes. Mr Isaacs listens patiently and politely and remarks:
"Fourteen days."
Charley saw the humour of it afterwards, he says.
But what good does it all do?
I had no wish to treat drunkenness frivolously in beginning this sketch; I have seen women in the horrors--that ought to be enough.

"ROLL UP AT TALBRAGAR"
Jack Denver died at Talbragar when Christmas Eve began, And there was sorrow round the place, for Denver was a man; Jack Denver's wife bowed down her head--her daughter's grief was wild, And big Ben Duggan by the bed stood sobbing like a child. But big Ben Duggan saddled up, and galloped fast and far, To raise the longest funeral ever seen on Talbragar.
-Ben Duggan.
Both funerals belonged to Big Ben Duggan in a way, though Jack Denver was indirectly the cause of both.
Jack Denver was reckoned the most popular man in the district (outside the principal township)--a white man and a straight man--a white boss and a straight sportsman. He was a squatter, though a small one; a real squatter who lived on his run and worked with his men--no dummy, super, manager for a bank, or swollen cockatoo about Jack Denver. He was on the committees at agricultural shows and sports, great at picnics and dances, beloved by school children at school feasts (I wonder if they call them feasts still), giver of extra or special prizes, mostly sovs. and half-sovs., for foot races, etc.; leading spirit for the scrub district in electioneering campaigns--they went as right as men could go in the politics of those days who watched and went the way Jack Denver went; header of subscription lists for burnt-out, flooded-out, sick, hurt, dead or killed or otherwise knocked-out selectors and others, or their families; barracker and agitator for new provisional schools, assister of his Reverence and little bush chapels, friend of all manner of wanderers--careless, good-hearted scamps in trouble, broken-hearted new chums, wrecks and failures and outcasts of any colour or creed, and especially of old King Jimmy and the swiftly vanishing remnant of his tribe. His big slab-and-shingle and brick-floored kitchen, with its skillions, built on more generous plans and specifications than even the house itself, was the wanderer's goal and home in bad weather. And--yes, owner, on a small scale, of racehorses, and a keen sportsman.
Jack Denver and Big Ben Duggan were boys together on the old selections, and at the new provisional bark school at Pipeclay; they went into the Great North-West together "where all the rovers go"--stock-riding and droving and overlanding, and came back after a few years bronzed and seasoned and with wild yarns.
Jack married and settled down on a small run his father had bought near Talbragar, and his generous family of tall, straight bush boys and tall, straight bush girls grew up and had their sweethearts. But, when Jack married, Big Ben Duggan went back again, up into Queensland and the Great North-West, with a makeshift mate who had also lost his mate through marriage. Ever and again, after one, and two, and three years--the periods of absence lengthening as the years went on--Big Ben Duggan would come back home, and stay a while (till the Great North-West began to call insistently) at Denver's, where he would be welcomed jubilantly by all--even the baby who had never seen him--for there was "something about the man." And, until late on the night of his return, he and