The Australian Woman 167 



the noble, self-denying lives of many of these 

 bush women. 



The bush affords many instances of women 

 who, under stress of circumstances, have played 

 strange parts in life. There are authenticated 

 accounts of women tramping the country in men's 

 attire, carrying their swags and turning their 

 hands to all the varied employments required of 

 the handy-man of the bush. It is not many years 

 ago since there died a woman known on the Aus- 

 tralian roads as " Bullocky Mary." In short 

 skirts and heavy boots, with a man's felt hat 

 upon her head, this Amazon used to drive her 

 team of bullocks through the country, lashing 

 them with her long whip and a vocabulary of 

 the most effective description. The spectacle of 

 husband and wife mining together is by no means 

 an uncommon one, the man working below in the 

 mine, while the woman turns the windlass which 

 lifts the debris from the shaft. Australian race- 

 courses have known at least one woman who 

 trained her own race-horse, and more than one 

 woman who plied the calling of a book-maker. 



This aspect of feminine life is fortunately grow- 

 ing more uncommon as time goes on, and it is 

 easily possible to discern the true place of the 

 Australian woman by looking in exactly the 

 opposite direction. The proportion of women 

 students at the Australian universities is steadily 

 increasing, and it appears from the reports of 

 these institutions, that woman is less apt than 



