82 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



North Australia were originally stockmen, and are still 

 addressed by their stockmen as " Jack " or " Bill/' 

 They seem to command the respect of those who know 

 of their strenuous lives and brave deeds. 



One of the first Victorian pioneers had been a cabin- 

 boy and had risen to the position of ship-master. A 

 long list of superintendents, managers, and overseers 

 have risen to owning the stations on which they were 

 employed.* It may be only a poet's jest, but is far 

 more likely to be the truth, that servants of the lowest 

 rank have climbed up so high. A country lout named 

 Andy was " Middleton's rouseabout," who worked on 

 Middleton's station for " a pound a week and his keep." 



" Type of a careless nation, 



Men who are soon played out, 

 Middleton was ; — and his station 

 Was bought by the Rouseabout." f 



Some, like the finder of the Eacott pearl, have suddenly 

 come into the possession of wealth, and bought a run. 

 Or the overworked head-master, the disenchanted 

 politician, or the newspaper-editor manqui, has retired 

 from the turmoil, and escaped to a station. Men who 

 have made a fortune in trade — city grocers who knew 

 nothing of pastoral life — sometimes men who have 

 dropped into one — desire to gild it by sitting do^A^n on a 

 station, only to find, like the retired poulterer from New 

 Bond Street, or the widow of a member of Parliament 

 who has unfortunately been " in trade," the daughter, 

 she, of one of the greatest of British shipbuilders, that 

 the neighbouring gentry refuse to recognise him. 



* See Letters of Victorian Pioneers. 

 t Lawson, In Days, etc. 



