THE SWAGGER.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 79, 27 December 1907, Page 8

THE SWAGGER.

A REMINISCENCE OF PAST DAYS. A .swagger is passing away in the Wairarap?,, (oxsept that picturosquo : portion of him wbiihi jffi the real .child of pleasure of tho Back Wracks Roads; who laughs at work and seldom 'touches it; muses on his back and builds castles in the air. upon vhni might have been; and philosophises upon tho happy days of long ago. Ono timo tho . swagger was an institution of country life. Ho had an itinerary which extended from Kidnappers to Palliser Bay, and ho did it with timetable regularity. Ho would always striko a station at either meal timo or sundown, and with three feeds a day and gentlo exercise he waxed fat and prosperous looking, except for his clothes, which wero usually tattored. Sometimes, when times were rather hard with tho station owner, and his welcorao was not quito assured, our cheerful friond was forced to exerciso his mental talents, which, 1 rightly directed, might have led him on to fortune. He did not care to soil his hands with common toil, and ho usually fell back upon some stratagem which might, make it appear that ho was watching over tho station-owner's interests. For instance,' there is a tradition of a man who led a dog up and down the coast for many years oil and on. It is not recorded how many times the faithful animal was accused of siieep stealing to run-holders by his conscienceless owner, nor how many tiraos ho was dragged off to the scrub to bo slaughtered ,by the same individual. He lived, however, under the woight of much vicarious sin, until he had been condemned to death upon almost every sheep-station in New Zealand; and then ho died of a broken heart whon his owner tried to work him off in the city of Wellington as a bad hydrophobia case. There wero others who, in tho golden summer time, wero always putting out the grass fires, and would appear at tho stations with dirty handkerchiefs tied tightly around their oyes, which wero/said to bo suffering from th«> smoke caused'by the. conflagrations.'. As fans .wont on, some aspired to umbrellas iml 'jftgars.. It is true that the umbrellas were rather frayed looking, and tho cigars wore evil-smelling to a'degreo, but it was a sign of the tide of prosperity which had at last marked: the'life of this professional Glyssoß.'". Thi3 is a picture of ono class of swagger, whoso days are passing, and who is now a>solitary unit, .whoro onco ho moved in hundreds. . He nover looked for work. . There was another phase of the swagger —the man of-ill-fortune.seeking.to retriove himself; also tho child of his own■ wrong--joing, who did not care if he did or did not retrieve himself. . Both thesq specimens were men of labour. Tho first named- would often work himself up and up until .ho' acquired i farm of his own, and thoro.are many of him to-day spread all over tho Dominion, giving his children a college education. The second named wore those who- .wero naturally of an adventurous disposition. . They ivero ready for anything, from love-makhff to manslaughter. Their temperaments IJSS. caused thorn to misdirect -their -energies. When' the smash came thoy had drifted to tho sfreep-stations, and ( they lived from day to day. Doctors, lawyers, and'gentlemen were represented with tho flotsam of the Cojonies; and their lives have not yet been 1 written. Tho writer remembers ono individual, picked up on tho road, who edited a paper on a Wairarapa sheep-station. This journal was published .-on': a-Sunday. Tho news of the week was faithfully recorded, ' and in a freo and easy style, which kept tho editor', in a simmor of trouble with tho readers, who disliked too much open-handed criticism of their frailties. There- was anothor,' a patrician-faced man with a talent for verse-making, who onco mado a poom of sixty verses, which imraortalisod tho name of ovory man on the station. l '. - Mon of this description were on every big station at one. ■ time, but they aro passing away now in New Zealand. One casually 'yronde'rs (writes our Wairarapa correspondent) where do they drift to?- • , -.