LIFE IN THE FAR BACK

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 34, 9 August 1921, Page 6

LIFE IN THE FAR BACK

'tinned food and fly pests.

(WOII 00* OWM cpMMPOKBBNI.) SYDNEY, Ist August. . ■ The unenviable lot of the telegraph lintsmeTwho look after the overland $re bttween South Austria and Uw, Northern Territory « ■■J<»™v, ™* other day in a statement before a Federal Committee, which is inquiring into the linesmen's claim for better pay who said that for four years he had been engaged with a party which operated between Ootadatt* 688 miles from Adelaide, and Powell Oreek, 1488 miles from Adelaide. Th« temperature ranged from 117-degrees m summer to 94 in-winter. . .' The plftffue of flies and mosquitoes in summer- made life almost unendurable.; They were so bad that, when not movmg about, the men had to keep underletting. All their meals were eaten under ■nets- They seldom tested fresh food. The Department forwarded supplies to them—all tinned. They lived onl tinned meats,- milk, cabbage, turnips, and fish. The Department also supplied tobacco, matches, and soan^ The tobacco was so coarse and strong that they could not smoke it. When they were pestered by natives, they gave it to the biggest bucks —and it never failed to "lay them out" for a few days. Yet the linesmen were forced'to pay for all the .supplies for-, warded. , I They had fresh meat about once in eight months. The water, which was' 'found in rockholes and soaks, was very brackish. Often it was necessary to remove the dead bodies of dogs from it before it was boiled and consumed. It was sometimes so bad that the horses \vouldi not drink lit. ' The gangs at times'were hundreds of miles from a doctor. One man, as tho result of an accident,' broke a. bone in his knee, and the nearest doctor was 496 miles away. The linesmen, however, gob into communication with him by telegraph, and the injured linesman set, his own leg, according to. the instruction* which canie Qvpr the wire ' from tho doctor. .