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CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



VICISSITUDES. 



COMING now to his last chapter, the writer would fain apologise in 

 advance for what may at first appear its egotistical character. Really, 

 however, as he hopes the reader will perceive, it is impossible alto- 

 gether to dissociate the story of a bit of land from the story of 

 the possessor or possessors of that bit of land. Without more words, 

 then, he will proceed briefly to chronicle, not, alas ! interesting changes 

 of the earth's surface, the transformation of plant and animal life, 

 but the doings only of man, the commonest species on the globe. 



Yet even in this department of station life an evolution had 

 occurred not without interest to the student of sociology. Readers will 

 recollect how in the 'seventies and 'eighties, owners and employees had 

 worked shoulder to shoulder as packmen, cooks, butchers, fencers, bullock- 

 punchers, sawyers, and shepherds. In that arcadian life for Romans 

 were like brothers in the brave days of old the lines of social demarca- 

 tion had been unknown. All wore clothes very few of them too of 

 the same cut, slept in the same hut, fed together on the spartan fare of 

 those days bread, mutton, potatoes, and duff. 



Later, this primitive original relationship of master and man had 

 given place to another slightly more complex, when management and 

 clerical work had come necessarily to consume a greater portion of the 

 owner's day, when he began to differentiate in outlook and responsi- 

 bilities from his erstwhile fellow-labourers. 



Later again, owing to a further extension of activities in station 

 business, in fattening, in the multiplication of small paddocks, and in 

 agriculture, the gap still further widened between the old life and the 

 new. 



Finally, the claims of personal labour were superseded by a more 



