Rolf Boldrewood
In Bad Company and other stories
This had seemed fair reasoning to that class of men who are glad of any excuse to avoid paying cash out of pocket and to the avowal of a decided policy. But there were other squatters equally averse to unnecessary outlay, who, possessing more forecast and logical acumen, refused on principle to make terms with the shearers' or any other Union. They had stated their grounds of dissent from the policy of opportunism, and, what was more important, acted upon them with courage and consistency.
'This station,' said Archibald Douglas Kinross, 'chiefly freehold land, with the sheep depasturing thereon, is my property, as the law stands at present. And I claim the right of every Briton to manage his own affairs in his own way. To employ persons to do my work —my work, you understand, not any one else's – as I shall choose, in my own way and after my own taste. If any section of workmen does not wish to work for me, they are at liberty not to do so. I leave them absolute freedom in that respect; but if they accept my pay and my employment, they must do my work as I choose– not as they choose – all socialistic sophistry notwithstanding.
'Australia still contains men willing to work for high wages and good food, and to do what they are told by a fair employer, and if I am threatened or my property injured by lawless ill-disposed persons, I shall appeal to that statute under which law and order have hitherto, in Australia, been vindicated. Moreover I, Archie Kinross, am not going to place myself under the heel of any body of men calling themselves by one name or another. Once concede Trade Unions their right to coerce the individual, and farewell to that freedom which has so long been the Briton's boast.
'Every man who had the misfortune to acquire or inherit property would, as the so-called Unions gained power by cowardly subservience or mistaken reasoning, be at the mercy of an irresponsible, ignorant, perhaps more or less unprincipled committee, anxious to blackmail those more fortunately placed than themselves.
'They would be told how many servants they were to employ, and what they were to pay them; feed, clothe, and otherwise provide for them. Not improbably, other concessions would be gradually exacted. The whole result being reached in a state of modified communism, certain to end in bloodshed and revolution. A social upheaval, which all history tells us is the invariable precursor of a military despotism.'
After ever so much trouble, worry and anxiety, arising from the offensively independent and even obstructive attitude of the shearers at all the sheds in the Lower Darling and elsewhere in New South Wales, a start was made at Tandara.
Jack Macdonald, bitterly aggrieved that his employers should have given in, was almost out of his mind with the irritating, puerile demands and objections which he had to meet.
'In old days he would have knocked down the ringleader, and told the sympathisers to "go to the devil" – that they need never show up at this shed or station again. Never should they get a pound of mutton or a pannikin of flour from the store, if they were dying of hunger; that they were ungrateful dogs, and here – at Tandara of all places, known for the most liberal station in the whole blooming district for pay and rations, where useless old hands were pensioned and kept on at make-believe work, when no one else would have had them on the place; where more expensive improvements – huts, fencing, tanks, wells, and stock-yards – had been made and put up, than on any station from the Queensland border to the sea. And now, what had come of it all?
'Where was the gratitude of the working-man, who, with his fellows, had been fed, lodged, and supported in good seasons and bad – when wool was down and money was scarce, and half the squatters on the verge of ruin? When the shed was down with influenza last year, didn't the wife and daughters of the "boss," who happened to be staying over shearing that year, make jelly, sago puddings and cakes, all sorts of blooming luxuries for the men that were going to die (by their own account), and couldn't hold their heads up?
'And now, because labour was scarce, owing to the Coolgardie goldfield having broken out, and the season coming on early, with the burr and grass seeds ripening every day, they must try and ruin their best friends, the squatters – threatening to strike for this and that – faulting the meat, the bread, the sugar, the tea, every mortal thing (far better than ever they'd been used to), and all at the bidding of a fellow like Stead, a man that had been educated at the expense of the State, people putting their hands in their pockets to pay for his schooling. And this is the first use he makes of it. It was enough to make a man feel ashamed of the colony he was born in, ashamed of being an Australian native, enough to make him clear out to South Africa, where the Boers and blackfellows were said to be no great things, but couldn't be such sneaks and dogs and thieves as his countrymen here.'
Jack Macdonald repeated this unreserved statement of opinion so often, for the benefit of all whom it might concern, that he began to know it by heart, and half thought of standing for the district, when the next election came round. However, the men liked him, and didn't mind his hard words, knowing that they held the key of the position, and that he was powerless if he wanted his sheep shorn. He couldn't afford to kick them out, however much he might wish so to do. All the sheds in the district were short of men, and if the shearers left in a body, the year's clip would suffer ruinous loss and injury. So they turned up their noses at the beautiful, fat, well-cooked mutton, – said 'they wanted more chops.' To which Macdonald sarcastically replied 'that he supposed they must grow a new breed of sheep, all chops.' In spite of their five meals a day, early breakfast, tea and 'brownie' at eleven o'clock, dinner at one, afternoon tea at four o'clock, and supper at half-past six, they were not satisfied, and, indeed, would not have gone without a second supper at 9 P.M. if the cook had not refused point-blank, and being a fighting man of some eminence, invited the deputation to 'step outside and put up their hands,' one after the other.
However, as before mentioned, a start was made, and though the quality of shearing was no great things, and Mr. Stoate, duly elected Shearers' Delegate, produced his appointment and walked up and down the shed, with great dignity, carefully ignoring Macdonald, and ostentatiously writing or telegraphing to W. Stead, Esq., President of the A.S.U., Wagga Wagga,1 N.S. Wales, some kind of progress was made, and the super's face began to lose its saturnine expression. The weather, which in the early days of spring had been showery and unfavourable, changed for the better, and the heaviest of the flocks having been shorn, 'big tallies' – a hundred and thirty, and even one hundred and fifty or sixty – began to be made.
The discontented shearers even, whose minds had been unsettled by specious, communistic talk, prophesying a general distribution of property among the wage-earners, according to the gospel of Bellamy, commenced to be more or less satisfied. Visions of the big cheque, to which each man was adding now (prospectively) at the rate of from a pound to thirty-five shillings a day, commenced to float in the air. All was comparative peace and joy. Macdonald, it is true, had a trifling altercation with Mr. Janus Stoate one Friday afternoon, during which the last-named gentleman received a telegram, which he put into his pocket, after reading it, with a sneering smile. 'You'll know directly who's master on this floor – you, the hired servant of a capitalist, as is livin' on the blood of these pore ignorant chaps; or me, that's been elected by the workers of the land to see as they gets justice from their grindin' employers.'
Macdonald made one step towards the insolent underling, as might the second mate of a north sea whale-ship, if cook or fo'c's'le hand dared withstand him, while the wrathful glitter in his eye caused the offender to alter his tone. But the thought of the shearing, now three-parts through, being delayed on his account, was even a stronger controlling force.
Halting, with an effort, he glared for a few seconds at the contemptible creature, that yet had such power of annoyance, as if he could crush him with his heel. Then with studiously calm and measured tones, he said: 'You'd do great things if you were able, Mr. Delegate Stoate. If I had my way, I'd have you shot and nailed up on a barn door, as they do your namesakes in the old country. That's the only way to treat varmint, and it's a pity it isn't done here.'
The man received this little compliment with an attempt at cynical self-possession, which his shifty, malignant gaze belied, as the small eyes gleamed with reptilian malice. 'I'll learn yer,' he hissed out, 'to talk to the people's chyce as if he was the dirt under yer feet.' 'Men of the Australian Shearers' Union,' he said, raising his voice to a shrill cry, 'listen to me, and drop them shears – every man Jack of yer. D'ye know what's in this bloomin' tallagram? A strike's ordered. D'ye hear? – a strike! Here's the wire from the Head Centre at Wagga.
'"By order of the President and Council of the Australian Shearers' Union. Every shed in the Darling district, Union or non-Union, is hereby commanded to come out and stop working instantly on receiving this notice from the Delegate of the Branch, under penalty of being reported to the Council of the Union at Headquarters.
Signed by me, W. Stead,
At Wagga Wagga, this 30th September 189-."'
CHAPTER III
This was a bombshell with a vengeance. The anarchist, who threw it metaphorically, would have had no scruples – except those of personal apprehension – in casting a dynamite duplicate on the shearing floor. A sudden confusion filled the shed. Murmurs and sullen rejoinders were made, as the more prudent division of the men recognised that their shearing cheques, the outcome of weeks of hard work, were doomed to delay, perhaps to forfeiture. Some openly withstood the triumphant delegate, others, less impulsive, were disposed to temporise, while 'I thought this was a Union shed' remarked, with slow impressiveness, a gigantic native, considerably over six feet in height, whose wiry, muscular frame and tremendous reach stamped him as one of the 'ringers' of the shed. 'Ain't the Union Rules put up there?' pointing to the copy ostentatiously affixed at the end of the shed for reference. 'What's this darned foolishness, stoppin' men that's only a week's work between them and a big cheque?'
'You can read and write, I suppose,' replied Mr. Stoate contemptuously. ('Better nor you,' murmured a young fellow just within earshot.) 'Is them words on the telegram, what I told the men of this shed, and are you thereby ordered to come out, or are you not? That's what I want to know. Are you a-goin' to defy the Union? Think a bit afore you chance that and turn "scab."'
'I'm goin' to think a bit – just so, – and I hope you other chaps'll do the same, and not rush into law, like a bull at a gate, and lose your money, because of any second fiddle in the land. As to being a "scab," Delegate Stoate, I'm no more one than you are, perhaps not as much, if the truth's told. But don't you say that to me again, or I'll pitch you through one of them skylights, with one hand too.' And here the giant stretched forward his enormous fore-arm, and looking upward to the skylight in the roof of the woolshed, made as though there would be no unusual difficulty in the feat. 'Show me that telegram, please; this step wants consideration.'
'Ain't you goin' to obey the Union?' demanded Stoate with a great assumption of dignity. 'P'raps you ain't aweer, men, as this is a serious act of disobedience, which I shall report accordin'.'
'That's all very well,' answered the dissenter, whose unusual height, as he towered above his fellows, seemed to give him a certain title to leadership. 'I'm as good a Unionist as any man here; but I see no points in chuckin' away our money and hurtin' an employer who's been fair and square with us. Where's he gone against our rules? I ask you all. Isn't the rules put up at the end of the shed, all ship-shape and reg'lar? Didn't we stop shearin' for two days last week, and the weather fine, because the delegate here said the wool was damp? I didn't feel no damp, nor my mate neither, and we lost two dashed good days' work – a couple of pounds each all round. Now, I don't want to go dead against the Union, though I can't see the fun of losin' a goodish cheque, and, as I say, hurtin' a gentleman as never did any man here a bad turn. Let's try a middle course. Suppose we pick a man as we all can trust, and send him to Wagga. He can interview the Head Centre there, and make sure, afore we chuck away our stuff, whether every Union shed's bound to come out, or whether, under partic'lar circumstances like this here, we can't cut out the shed afore we go. I move a resolution to that effect.'
'And I second it,' said Bill Hardwick. 'I want to take my money home to my old woman and the kids; I've got a lot to do with it this season, and so, I daresay, have most of you, chaps. I don't see no sense in clearin' out now, when we've got fifty or sixty pound a man, to take and goin' off with neither money nor grub. Of course, we can wait to be paid out of Union funds, but we know what that means. Those that votes for Jim Stanford's motion, and fair play, hold up your hands.'
The scene that followed was hard to describe. A forest of hands was held up, while there rose a babel of voices, some laying down the law, others expressing a doubt of the prudence of flouting the mysterious powers of the A.S.U., in the midst of which Mr. Stoate, standing upon the wool table, vainly attempted to make himself heard.
The controversy continued until the dinner-bell rang, by which time it was clear that the sense of the meeting was overwhelmingly in favour of Stanford's amendment.
So, in spite of Stoate's threats and envious malice, a steady-going, middle-aged shearer of known probity and experience was chosen and despatched to Narandera, en route for Wagga Wagga, for further instructions. In the meantime, it was agreed to go on with the shearing, to which the men addressed themselves with such energy and determination, that when the knock-off evening bell sounded, the tallies were larger than on any preceding afternoon of the week. Jack Macdonald was delighted, though he refrained from open commendation, as he noticed that all the fast shearers made a point of shearing carefully and giving no room for disapprobation on his part.
Mr. Stoate viewed the whole proceedings with unconcealed disgust, and talked big about taking down the names of every man in the shed, and so reporting them that they would never get another 'stand' in a Union shed. He found, however, that except among the young, unmarried men, and a few reckless spendthrifts, who were carried away by the specious ideas at that time freely ventilated, he had little influence.
Stanford and Hardwick were noted men – honest, hard-working, and respected as 'ringers,' and as such, leaders in their profession. As Stanford bent his long back, and lifted out a fresh sheep every few minutes from the pen, with as much apparent ease as if the big, struggling seventy pound wether had been a rabbit, a feeling of industrial emulation seemed to pervade the great shed, and each man 'shore for his life,' as old Billy Day expressed it – 'and that dashed neat and careful, as if there was a hundred pound prize at next Wagga Show hangin' to it.'
'Wait till George Greenwell comes back,' said Stoate – 'and he ought to be here inside of eight days, as he can get the rail from Narandera – and see what you'll have to say, then.'
Of course, telegrams had been sent, and arrived with reiterated command from the Napoleon at Wagga Wagga – to lay down their arms, or rather their shears, as ordered.
And this was the crowning injustice and treachery of the ukase – that all the Union sheds in New South Wales, where the proprietors had surrendered their independence, and pocketed their pride, at the bidding of expediency, were penalised. Those squatters who 'bowed not the knee to Baal,' and fought out the contest, with sheds half full of 'learners,' and strangers from other colonies, brought over by the Pastoral Association, as well as the free shearers, who, intimidated by the Union guerillas, were often injured and hindered as to their lawful work, were now in a far better position. They were able to laugh at the surrendering squatters.
'You have given in,' said they; 'sacrificed principle and set a bad example for the sake of getting quickly through this season's shearing. You betrayed your pastoral comrades, and are now betrayed by the Union; you are left in the lurch. Serve you right!'
So, 'deserted in their utmost need,' with half-shorn sheep, and no hope of fresh men – as the non-Union sheds had secured most of the available labour – they were in a pitiable condition, neither help nor sympathy being procurable; while many of the free sheds were shearing steadily and comfortably, with a 'full board.'
In seven days, Mr. Greenwell was expected to appear. He could ride to Narandera in three days; twenty-four hours would take him to Wagga Wagga, after stopping for the night at Junee Junction. This was far and away the finest railway station in New South Wales, perhaps in Australia, having not only an imposing structure connected with the railway proper, but a very fine hotel, erected by the Government of New South Wales, liberally managed and expensively furnished.
There, the railway passenger could spend the night, or a week, if he so decided, being sure that he would be called at the proper time, either by night or day, to be despatched on his journey in an enviable and Christian state of mind.
The days passed on at Tandara, the week was nearly over. Such quick and clean shearing had never been done there before. The last day of the allotted time approached. Greenwell had not arrived, but surely he would turn up on the morrow.
Stoate was uneasily anxious. He hinted at treachery. But Greenwell, a regular, downright 'white man,' could not be 'got at.' Every one scoffed at the idea. One of the rouseabouts, who had known better times, hummed the refrain of 'Mariana in the moated grange': 'He cometh not, she said.' Worst of all, from Stoate's point of view, the shearing would be finished in two more days. The shed would then be paid off – shearers, pressers, rouseabouts, the cook and his mate, everybody down to the tar-boy. If their emissary didn't come before then, he might just as well not come at all. The 'might, majesty, and dominion' of the Australian Shearers' Union, with 20,000 members in all the colonies, which had aimed at one great 'Australian Labourers' Union' in town and country, would be set at nought. They had planned the inclusion of every worker – that is, muscle-worker, for brains didn't count – from the ship's cook of the coaster to the boundary rider on the Lower Darling or the Red Barcoo; from the gas-stoker in Melbourne or Sydney, where they hoped to plunge the cities into darkness, to the stock-rider, behind his drove of Queensland bullocks; and the back-block carrier, with his waggon and team of fourteen unshod Clydesdales or Suffolks.
And now, in the case of the Tandara shed, one of the best known and oldest stations on the Darling, this campaign against capital was to end in defeat and disappointment.
Stoate groaned in despair, as the eighth day arrived and no messenger. For the last forty-eight hours he had been looking anxiously for the cloud of dust at the end of the long, straight road across the endless plain, which heralded the approach of team, coach, or horseman.
As if to aggravate the Strike leaders, and all connected with that beneficent institution, the weather had been miraculously fine. No spring storms had come out of the cloudless sky, not so much as a 'Darling River shower' – four drops upon five acres,' in the vernacular – had sprinkled the red dust of the plain, to give the delegate the excuse to declare the sheep too wet to shear, and so lose a day. Nothing, in fact, happened. And on the noontide hour of the fourth day succeeding the week, Tandara shed 'cut out.' The 'cobbler,' the last sheep – a bad one to shear, and so considerately left for 'some one else,' by every man who picked out of the large middle pen – was lifted aloft by Stanford, amid the jeers of the men, now preparing with stiff backs and aching sinews to surrender their task for a full week at any rate, before they 'struck' the next shed, lower down the river.
'I could shear him,' said he, regarding the closely wrinkled 'boardy' fleece, 'if he was covered with bloomin' pin-wire. My word! isn't it a pity that Greenwell didn't turn up afore? Eh, Mr. Delegate? D'ye think the Union'll guillotine us, same as they did chaps at the French Revolution? I'm off to Launceston in case of accidents. My cheque'll keep me for the rest of the summer, in a country that is a country – not a God-forsaken dust-heap like this.' Thus speaking, and shearing all the while, with punctilious precision, Mr. Stanford trimmed the 'cobbler' with a great affectation of anxiety, and dismissing him down the shoot of the pen with a harmless kick, said, 'Good-bye, and God bless you, old man; you make eighty-nine – not a bad forenoon's work.'
'Come along, men, down to the office,' said Macdonald, 'your money's ready for you – the storekeeper and I were up pretty nigh all night getting the accounts made out. You'll enjoy your dinners all the better for having your money in your pockets. The rouseabouts and shed hands can come in the afternoon. They won't want to leave before morning.'
'Who's that coming along the Wagga road on a grey horse?' said a sharp-eyed young shearer. 'By Jing! I believe it's Greenwell. Whatever can have kep' him, Mr. Stoate?'
'Never mind him,' said Macdonald. 'John Anderson, this is your account; look it over. £45:10:6. You'll take a cheque; here it is – sign the book. I'll take you all by the alphabet.'
As the men stood round the little room at the side of the big store, that served for the station office, the traveller on the grey horse rode slowly towards them.
The men were in a merry humour. Their keen eyes had recognised horse and rider afar off. It was the messenger who had so signally failed in coming up to time. He was received with a storm of ironical cheers and derisive exclamations.
'Halloa, George – where yer been? To Sydney and back? Got warrants for us all? To think as we should ha' cut out, and you on the road with an order from the Head Centre in your pocket! Come along, Mr. Delegate, and talk straight to him.'
These and the like specimens of humorous conversation were shouted at the unlucky emissary, who, as he came up and wearily dismounted, evidently knew that an explanation would be demanded of him.
Stoate walked out with a solemn and dignified air to meet him. 'Well done, Mr. Delegate, give it to him from the shoulder. He's a jolly telegraph, ain't he? Why, Joe Kearney the sprinter could have run all the way and beat him, hands down.'
'Will you oblige me by statin' the cause of your delay on a mission of importance to the Union and your feller-workers?'
'Now then, George, speak up – give us the straight griffin. What was it? Honour bright; did yer join a circus? Was there a good-looking girl in the way? And you a married man. For shame of you!'
Between the awful visage of Mr. Stoate and the running fire of chaff from his mates, Greenwell looked rather nonplussed.
However, girding himself for the contest, he mustered up courage, and thus delivered himself.
'Well, boys, the long and short of it is, I was took ill at Junee, on the return journey, and after stayin' a day, just as I was startin' back, some old mates of mine, as had just cut out at Hangin' Rock, come along, and – well, the truth's the truth, we all got on a bit of a spree. Now the murder's out, and you can make the best of it. I don't see as there's anything broke, so far.'
'Anything broke,' retorted Stoate indignantly. 'Hasn't the shed been cut out, in direct disobedience of orders, and the Union treated with contempt?'
'We're just gettin' our cheques,' called out a young fellow at the back of the crowd. 'Jolly awkward, ain't it? But I'll get over it, and so'll Dick Dawson.'
When the weighty matter of the payment was over, and the men were finishing their 'wash and brush up,' getting up their horses and settling their packs, one of the older men approached Stanford, who was quietly proceeding with his preparations, and thus addressed him —
'Now, Jim, you knowed that chap afore, didn't yer? Hadn't yer no notion as he might get on a "tear," with money in his pocket, and half nothin' to do like?'
Mr. Stanford made no verbal answer, but drawing himself up to the full height of his exalted stature, looked down into the interrogator's face, with an expression of great solemnity. It is just possible that he may have observed a slight deflection in the corner of his left eye, as he relaxed the severity of his countenance, while he observed resignedly, 'Well, it might have been worse; I've got the boss's cheque for £57:14s., and a few notes for the road in my pocket, this blessed minute.'
'Mine's a shade more'n that,' replied 'Long Jim,' with deliberation. '"All's well that ends well" 's a good motter. I've done enough for this season, I reckon. I had a fairish fencing contract in the winter. It'll be time enough to think about the "dignity of labour" and the "ethics of war" (wasn't that what the Head Centre called 'em?) afore next shearin' comes round. I'm off to a cooler shop across the Straits.'
The shearing at Tandara having ended satisfactorily to the shearer, the sheep-washers, the rouseabouts, the boundary riders, the overseers, to every one connected with the establishment in fact, from the 'ringer' to the tar-boy, all of whose wages and accounts were paid up to the last hour of the last day, in fact to every one except Mr. Janus Stoate, whose remuneration was in the future, a great silence commenced to settle down upon the place so lately resounding with the 'language used, and the clamour of men and dogs.' The high-piled waggons, drawn by bullock teams of from twelve to twenty, and horse teams of nearly the same number, had rolled away. The shed labourers had walked off with swags on their backs. The shearers, many of whom had two horses, poor in condition when they came, but now sleek and spirited, had ridden off with money in both pockets, full of glee and playful as schoolboys. The great shed, empty save for a few bales of sheepskins, was carefully locked up, as were also the shearers' and the other huts. Even Bower, the grim night-guardian of the woolshed, liberally remunerated, had left for Melbourne by Cobb and Co.'s coach. There, among other recreations and city joys, he betook himself to the Wax-works in Bourke Street.
As with hair and beard trimmed, newly apparelled from top to toe, he wandered around, looking at the effigies of former friends and acquaintances, now, alas, cut off in their prime, or immersed in the dungeon of the period for such venial irregularities as burglary, highway robbery, manslaughter, and the like, his gaze became fixed, his footsteps arrested. He stands before the waxen, life-like presentment of a grizzled elderly man, in rough bush habiliments, his hat a ruin, his clothes ragged and torn, his boots disreputable. A double-barrelled gun rests on his shoulder, while above his head is a placard, on which in large letters could seen by the staring spectator —
'Harry Bower, the Celebrated Bushranger.'
Cut to the heart, not so much by the heartless publicity of the affair as by the disgraceful attempt to brand him as a dirty disreputable-looking individual, he glared angrily at his simulacrum. 'And me that was always so tasty in my dress,' he muttered. So saying, he seized the hapless figure by the arm, and dragging it along with wrathful vehemence, made for the door.
'Oh, Mr. Bower, Mr. Bower!' cried the proprietress, 'ye'll ruin him – I mane yerself. Sure ye wouldn't go to injure a poor widdy woman, and all the people sayin' it's your dead imidge.'
'Imidge of me, is it?' shouted Bower, the furious, ungovernable temper of the 'long sentence convict' breaking out. 'I'll tache ye to make a laughing-stock of Harry Bower, this day. Ye might have dressed me dacent, while ye wor about it.'
So saying, he dragged the inanimate malefactor through the door, and casting him down upon the Bourke Street pavement, commenced to kick him to pieces, to the great astonishment of the crowd which speedily gathered around him. A rumour had started that 'Bower the bushranger was killing a man outside the Wax-works,' and before many minutes the street was blocked with men, women, and children, lured to the spot by the expectation of seeing a real live bushranger in the exercise of his bloodthirsty vocation.
A few minutes later – having dissevered several vital portions of the 'Frankenstein' individual, and, like Artemus Ward's enthusiastic Bible Christian, who 'caved Judassis' head in,' more or less demolished the victim – Mr. Bower, desisting, stalked moodily up the street, his peculiar reputation not leading any one to volunteer pursuit. There was no constable in sight, so the Mrs. Jarley of the establishment was left to her lamentations, and the dubious satisfaction of a remedy by civil process.
Next day, below startling headlines, similar paragraphs appeared in the leading journals.
'An Ex-Bushranger
'Assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm
'About three o'clock yesterday afternoon, such denizens of Bourke Street as were passing Mrs. Dooley's interesting collection of Wax-works were alarmed by the spectacle of an aged man of athletic proportions, who had assaulted an individual of similar age and appearance; had thrown him down on the pavement, and was savagely kicking him about the head and the body; indeed it was feared – such was the fury of his gestures – that he was actually trampling the unfortunate victim of his rage to death. None dared to interfere, every one appeared paralysed; but after one or two public-spirited individuals had started for the Swanston Street police station, an adventurous bystander called out, 'Why, it's a wax figure.' Though a shout of laughter greeted the announcement, no one cared to remonstrate with the hero of so many legends – the man who, long outlawed, and captured after a desperate resistance, had barely escaped the gallows for the manslaughter of the warders of the hulk President in a frustrated plot for escape – the dreaded bushranger, Henry Bower. We have since learned that this attempt at felo de se (in wax) – for the injured individual turned out to be a fairly correct likeness of himself – can only be proceeded for as a debt, which Bower in his cooler moments will not be averse to liquidating, he having returned from the bush with a reasonably large cheque, earned in the service of an old employer, who gave him a berth at a couple of pounds a week as night-watchman of his woolshed. In these times of disturbance and incendiary troubles, most of our readers will concur with our opinion, that old Harry Bower, with his double-barrel, not swayed by frivolous objection to bloodshed, was, in such a position of trust, "the right man in the right place."'
