Shearing in the Riverina Part 1

Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales.

by Rolf Boldrewood.

"Shearing commences 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 importance to every member of a rather extensive "CORPS DRAMATIQUE" awaiting the industrial drama about to be performed.

A low sand-hill a few years since had looked out over a sea of grey plains, covered partly with gra.s.s, partly with salsiferous bushes and herbs. Two or 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 stage whereon to hang slaughtered cattle) alone broke the monotony of the plain-ocean. A comparatively small herd of cattle, 2000 or 3000, found more than sufficient pasturage during the short winter and spring, but were always compelled to migrate to mountain pastures when the swamps, which alone in those days formed the water-stores of the run, were dried up. But two or three, or at most half-a-dozen, stockmen were ever needed for the purpose of managing the herd, so inadequate in number and profitable occupation to this vast tract of grazing country.

But, a little later, one of the great chiefs of the wool-producing interest--a shepherd-king, so to speak, of shrewdness, energy, and capital--had seen, approved and purchased the lease of this waste kingdom. Almost at once, as if by magic, the scene changed. Great gangs of navvies appeared, wending their way across the silent plain. Dams were made, wells were dug. Tons of fencing wire were dropped on the sand by the long line of teams which seemed never tired of arriving.

Sheep by thousands, and tens of thousands, began to come, grazing and cropping up to the 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 was merely the economic truth of doing all the necessary work at once, rather than by instalments.

One hundred men for one day rather than one man for one hundred days.

Results soon began to demonstrate themselves. In twelve months the dams were full, the wells sending up their far-fetched priceless water, the wire fences erected, the shepherds gone, and 17,000 sheep 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 a.s.sistants to lay in a few provisions for the week's consumption of 70 able-bodied men. I must here explain that the cook of a large shearing-shed is a highly paid and tolerably irresponsible official. He is paid and provided by the shearers. Payment is generally arranged on the scale of half-a-crown a head weekly from each shearer. For this sum he must provide punctual and effective cooking, paying out of his own pocket as many "marmitons" as may be needful for that end, and to satisfy his tolerably exacting and fastidious employers.

In the present case he confers with the storekeeper, Mr de Vere, a young gentleman of aristocratic connexions 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 does not perhaps look 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, and also like a gentleman, as he is. "Jack the Cook" thus addresses him:

"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 shearing's on, they're good for a little extra!"

"All right, Jack," returns de Vere, good-temperedly, "all your lot 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 pounds pepper, a bag of salt, plates, knives, forks, ovens, frying-pans, saucepans, iron pots, and about a hundred other things. Now, mind you, return all the cooking things safe, or PAY FOR THEM--that's the order! You don't want anything more, do you? You've got enough for a regiment of cavalry, I should think."

"Well, I don't know. There won't be much left in a week if the weather holds good," makes answer the chef, 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-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 a.s.sembled 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 disburs.e.m.e.nts 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 const.i.tution 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 s.p.a.ce 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 it. 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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.serted 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 c.u.mberland;

--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 att.i.tude, 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 other sides 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-points in the long wool of its neck. A moment after a lithe and eager boy has gathered up fleece number one, and tossed it into the train-basket, the shearer is halfway down the sheep's 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 conjuror.

By this time 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, muscle, eye, endurance, will be all at, so to speak, concert-pitch, and sheep after sheep will be shorn with a precision and celerity even awful to the unprofessional observer.

The unpastoral reader may be informed that speed and completeness of denudation are the grand desiderata in shearing; the employer thinks princ.i.p.ally of the latter, the shearer princ.i.p.ally of the former. To adjust equitably the proportion is one of those 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 today 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 on 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 (Master Jack Windsor) had just finished his sheep and was sharpening his shears, when his eye caught Mr Gordon's form in 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 their huts, where their board literally smoked with abundance.

An hour pa.s.sed. 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 DE CAPO.

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 and 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 out 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 keen 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 till 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 very 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 draw-backs and destructions supervene. The spear-shaped gra.s.s-seeds, specially formed as if in special collusion 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 dark brown turn the carefully washed fleeces, causing anathema 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 perhaps 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 many tens of thousands of shorn sheep that have been counted out past his steady eye, criticises temperately, but watchfully. He reproves sufficiently, and 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 can 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 in that Captain of Industry who has the very delicate and important task of superintending a large woolshed. Hugh Gordon had shown all in such proportion as would have made a distinguished man anywhere, had fortune not adjusted for him this particular profession. Calm with the consciousness of strength, he was kind and considerate in manner as in nature, until provoked by glaring dishonesty or incivility. Then the lion part of his nature woke up, 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 day and hour by detachments and regiments at the washpen. They depart thence, like good boys on Sat.u.r.day night, redolent of soap and water, and clean to a fault. They enter 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 tomorrow 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, and they are glad of the respite. So at dinner-time all the sheep in the sheds, put in overnight in antic.i.p.ation of such a contingency, are reported shorn. All hands are then 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 themselves 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 tomorrow. A pair of 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 partic.i.p.ation in the general holiday that he finds the store thronged with shearers, washers, and "knock-about men," who being let loose, think it would be nice to go and buy something "pour pa.s.ser le temps." 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?" He speaks 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 washpen, 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."