THE ECONOMICS OF THE STATION 237 



had rolled in from his numerous and wide-spread sta- 

 tions," and he was only one of many.* The practice was 

 unavoidable. Almost all stations were distant — some 

 were very remote — from villages or towns. Money 

 was as useless to the dwellers on a station as it was 

 to the blacks, who sometimes waylaid and murdered 

 a traveller, and left his gold-laden pockets or belt un- 

 rified. The practice was unavoidable, but it often 

 had lamentable consequences. Receiving a cheque for 

 a large sum as the liberal payment of a year's labour, 

 a stockman would set out for the nearest country 

 town, or, it might be, the provincial metropolis, and 

 there put up at an inn. He at once handed the cheque 

 to Boniface, who took good care to see that it was soon 

 exhausted by carousing and " shouting." When he got 

 tired of his guest, he turned him out of doors, saying 

 that the bushman had received the equivalent of his 

 cheque. The process has ever since been known as 

 " lambing down." Austraha has the demerit of having 

 invented one of the vilest known forms of crime, and 

 untold thousands must thus have been robbed. Out of 

 it, possibly, have grown the " confidence-man " and the 

 cloud of harpies who regularly swoop down on country- 

 men arriving in town. Ten thousand such individuals 

 are said to make a living in each of the larger Australian 

 capitals. 



* N. Bartley, Opals and Agates, p 56. 



