NEWS "OUT BACK"

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 90, 18 April 1914, Page 2

NEWS "OUT BACK"

[ WHAT EVERY MAN READS. '' ! I was sitting in the stuffy' little compartment of the /train that runs twice a week to one of "the outback" parts ,of Australia, when through the open window came a long quavering cry of "Pape-e-r!" For hours the train had been rolling over heat-quavering, dusty plains. We had not passed a habitation or a human being for dreary long miles. The "scenery" was monojtonous and depressing. Wide empty plains, and occasional dead gums, with their bark hanging stripped in long peels and their limbs shining white and , naked in the sun. 1 was glad to hear < a .human voice, and looked curiously, to find the meaning of that wailing, cry. On the road that ran, a mere beaten path inches deep in dust, ; parallel /to the rail, stood two tramps ; or "swaggies'" on foot. -They were! white to the lips with dust, and the ' sweat had smeared grimy streaks | across their faces. i WHY THEY CRY. j As I looked they shouted again to- \ gether, "Pa^a-p-e-r I" Another man' was in the carriage with me —an • Australian—and I asked him the ' meaning of that cry. "Shouting to ; the'passengers to.chuck em' their old! papers," he said. ! "Papers?" I asked, still not! understanding. j "Newspapers," he .said, pointing ( "to a little pile by my side. "I wish■■■l'd"known," I said. "I could hare thrown one of these. But (those men- —well, they didn't look j reading men." . j "Every man is a reading man in | the back country," he said quietly. ? "When a man has done his day's'; work there isn't much there,", and he nodded .to the sweltering land-J scape, "to interest pi% amuse him. ' So he reads. Reads every scrap of j print he can lay his,hands on. Books, magazines, .or papers —but papers first of all, if he can geft them. He can't get enough, though." SHUT OFF FROM THE WORLD. "Why papers first?" I asked. "I should have thought ail entrancing novel or something " "Because they're hungry for news," he interrupted. "And the farther out you go the worse it gets. Imagine a station or.' a run days away from the rail. The men see no one but each other. A stranger or a visitor is rare, and a thing to be talked of for weeks. They are shut off ..from the world. They're out of touch with mankind. They literally starve for news. I knew men -who threw up their jobs in far out-back country at" the Boer war time to come in'near the rail; But you can't understand. You've never known—-" and he sank back in his seat. | Bat my curiosity and sympathy were roused. I wanted to hear more of •this news-hunger. "Why don't they get a paper regularly by mail?" I asked. "1 suppose | the post runs everywhere?" "Yes," he said earnestly. "Thank God the mail-man gets round—once a week, or once a month maybe; but he gets round. And you want to see his arrival at. a, far-back place. Few of the men get letters, but anyhow a letter is read in live or .ten minutes. A paper lasts longer. The ones fthat get letters and papers can hardly wait for 'em to be served out. They snatch them like a hungry dog at a bone, and scuttle off to a quiet corner to devour them." THE NEW CHUMS. "But why don't ithey all- order them by mail?" I persisted. "They could afford them." . "Yes, 'tisn't that," said my companion. "But they're shifting about and changing addresses a lot, lind it's ;a trouble to get postal notes'to send, and. usually the ink-pot's dry or the pen's lost—oh, I hardly know myself. it's worst, of course, "for ■ the * new chums. "■:"' They haven't ,the same interest in Australian papers. They, want home news. They want the gossipy news—our cables don'jfc touch of what their blessed London's doing —and so on., I knew a'young fellow just out who worried himself sicV because he couldn't find out the name of a new piece at the—l forget, some musical-comedy show." "The Gaiety," I suggested. "That's it," he said. "And when that chap got a London paper he read it /to the last line—births and deaths and advertisements and all; and he'd yarn for hours about restaurants he' knew and lights on the wet Piccadilly pavement and week-ends at Brighton. His people wrote him, but he always said they gave him family news all right, but nothing aboujt all the little outside things he hankered to know/" Our train crawled into a sleepy siding station and half a dozen lounging men on the platform hailed the guard familiarly and stood chatting with him. The engine-driver strolled back and joined' in, and I caughfb j fragments of a discussion on some-! body's score and a wet wicket. j "Would these men . likle my papers?" I asked my friend. "Try 'em," he - said significantly, and I shouted from the window. "Want papers, mates?" A HOME PAPER. The men swung round towards our window with .a jerk. But they did] not hurry over, and showed no great I anxiety—the back-country men out-i English- the English at hiding their f feelings. But even they could not tully disguise the eagerness in eyes < to see and hands to grasp. One of I the men stood back a little from the-j others. He was a mere youngster , and Ins face was brick-red instead of i the leather brown of the rest. | ."He's an Englishman, by the look? or him, said my companion, catch-! ing my look. "A new chum." j I remembered his talk about the I new chum" and the hunger for a! home paper. I had kept back/ my ! copy of the —~, because I hadn't I quite finished with it. But I called! the new chum and handed the paper j over, and my throat lumped at the j look: that swept over his face and the I note in his voice as he caught sight I or the familiar title, "Thanks," he I stammered. "Oh-I. say-a home \ paper—a—. Thanks, thanks awf'ly." ! ; it was good to feel one could so! easily aye so.great a pleasure, and 11 watched the exile tuck away his i precious paper, with a little glow in I tny heart. But through the resjb of my journey i it was a physical hurt to hear at W* intervals .that wailing call 'of i Pape-e-r,-' and havo none to throw to the men who starved .for news.— ! London Globe. ' Jit .addition to Ins cricket team suffeiwdefeat in Wellington at Wer,.3tfr D p. U ese had lus pocket picfcea in tn© dressing-room and lost a satchel containing . the steamer tickets for the team, and other papers.