IN THE FAR INTERIOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 1906, 21 August 1890, Page 34

IN THE FAR INTERIOR.

THE SHEARERS' HUT. ,

By Os. Shappbra.

Rapid advances and multitudinous improvements in the various classes of laboursaving appliances flash with meteor -like brilliancy across the ever-ohanging vi3ta of cycling years, each new invention accentuating a fresh passage in the history of progress, and pointing unmistakably to a near future which shall stand unparalleled in the annals of national or even universal greatness. Intellect and mechanism hand in hand are creating and organising wealth-produc-ing engines — from raw material so lavishly supplied by Nature — to suoh an extent that for social refinement and grandeur, industrial and commercial enterprise, the final decades of the nineteenth century will be incomparably the greatest the world has ever known. Yet, in the face of this incontrovertible fact, it is curious and interesting, but deeply humiliating, to note the total absence of any reform in the matter of hut building and furnishing (sio) which at this day obtains throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand, and in fact the whole of the Australasian colonies : I refer, of course, to the "huts" provided by the squatrocracy (to coin a word) for the lodgment of all grades of wage-earners in their employ. If an artisan culled from the ranks of workers from any place within the bounds of European civilisation were suddenly transferred to this colony, and without any pre- j vious knowledge of our manners and customs - save what may be acquired through magazine articles— placed at the open door of an ordinary station hut, I should imagine his first remark on learning the purpose for which the building was used would be—" I remember reading somewhere that Kaffir labour was employed out here, but what an abominable den to stow the poor niggers in, to be sure 1 I suppose a good few die every year, now, don't they ? " Had the clique of aheepfarmers which suggested introducing Kaffirs a few years back carried out their intentions, they might always have relied on the mortality being great enough to reduce the expenditure for the return passage to the merest trifle, it being more than probable that a large percentage would have joined the great majority through climatic and other influences, including that of " the shearers' hut." However, the difficulty of that " past yet unforgotten time " was surmounted without having recourse to Kaffir immigration, and the general colonial workman being of necessity built of sturdier material, the runholder has not hitherto required to add a cemetery to his multiform possessions ; but he really cannot expect his luck to hold for ever. The buildings in question are not unusually unlined iron sheds, foul, frowsy, and malodorons. Malodorous, forsooth 1 Stinking, sirl stinking with a stench that bears a strong family resemblance to the exhalations from putrid fish in its vilest form. The cause of this evil smell is not far to seek. Garments and boots in all stages of antiquity, dilapidation, filth, and decomposition — relics of several decades of successive seasons' hands— are scattered promiscuously around in close proximity to the hut, while last season's contributions lying within add their quota to the sickening pestilential mass. Faugh 1 The internal construction of these receptacles for human oddments is generally such as to give one the impression that economy of spaoe must have been the chief design of the architect, and that the builder bad certainly carried the instructions accompanying the plan to a most successful issue. As a general rule (the exceptions in Otago may be numbered on the fingers of one hand) there is but one window to light the place, even where it attains the interior length of 44ft to 50ft and 16ft breadth ; of sourse the door at the opposite end also admits light, and provides the only ventilation save occasional openings between the sheetE of iron or weatherboards, the result of bad workmanship or decay through lapse of time. Nor is lack of light and proper ventilation the only evils the station employes have to contend with in their " hours of ease." The bunks, made of rough sawn timber or sheets of corrugated iron, require some sort of mattress to make them at all tenable, and to supply these all sorts of worn-out sacks and greasy woolpacks are pressed into the pervice, with the result of filling the place with myriads of fleas, whioh worry and torment the hapless men into a state of feverish excitement utterly precluding all possibility of Sleep until time and cnstom render them less susceptible to the irritating pest. One becomes accustomed to any evil in time, mostly in the same way as the proverbial eel gets acoustomed to being skinned. Rats also are a fertile source of annoyance. When the last flickering candle has gutteringly expired and darkness reigns around, when the only sounds that fall upon the ear are faint " cues words " from some flea-beleaguered sleep-seeker or the fretful snore of his more thickskinned neighbour, a faint squeak from a distant corner proclaims the fact that another nightly visitant has come to stay. Rats I Ye gods I what a varied assortment of these are here. There are mendicant rats, with worn patchy coats, their eyes a shining speck amidst a mass of scaly whity-blue wrinkles, hobbling about in weary, helpless fashion, feebly gathering a meagre share of the smaller crumbs overlooked by their abler and more energetic companions. Belligerent rats, with torn heads and bleeding ears, fight with tigerish ferocity with their equally torn and bleeding associates over some larger fragment. Sleek, well-fed sneak rats run noiselessly hither and thither, securing the spoil over which the belligerents are screaming and fighting. Whity-grey rats, browngrey rats, slate-grey rats— young, middleaged, and old— hold revel throughout the weary night, banqueting sumptuously off the fragments which have fallen from the tables during the day, and when sated adjourn to the bunks, »vhere ever and anon some unquiet sleeper is startled into wakefulness by the patter of clammy feet across his face, sits up, lights a match, swears, and goes to sleep again, to repeat the same process at irregular intervals till approaching dawn drives the rats to their holes.

Thus, amidßt an aooumnlation of horrors of whioh I but feebly draw the barest outline, the toiler of the back blocks passes his dreary nights in a vain endeavour to recuper rate his strength at the hands of "Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," and, rising unrefreshed, performs his ablutions at the creek, and betakes himself to his daily task at least as tired as on the previous evening. Truly a oharming prospect for our sons to look forward to, and yet we wonder why country boys flock to the towns. I think there can be no manner of doubt that shearers' lives are more materially shortened by their periodical residence in these huts — heirlooms of an almost forgotten age, proud monuments of early enterprise and modern degeneracy— than by the fatiguing work they are called upon to perform. That this evil might be remedied has never seemed to occur to the squatter, or if it has the subject of a man's oi twenty men's health paled into insignificance before the latest odds in the betting market or the advent of a new competitor for pugilistic honours. In the labour bills at present before our representatives in Parliament assembled there might be found room for a clause dealing with the subject of compensation to shearers' wives for the loss prematurely of their husbands, or in the event of the man being still alive, a pension might be granted for early decay and therefore loss to the family through decreased wage-earning capability arising from improper accommodation while performing his customary business. (N.B. — A fund for the above might be obtained by levying a tax on the unearned increment.) Were a Royal Commission appointed to examine and report on the general sanitary condition of shearers' huts, I imagine their report would be quite as startling as regards the overcrowding process as some of the sensational disclosures re London lodging houses ; and if the lodging house Tialitue has a more unwholesome bed I pity his gondition, for his case must be hard indeed. With regard to crowding, it seems surprising that so small an amount of ground and so great a sky space should be occupied by the building, when many of these pastoral holdings are from 50,000 aores to 100,000 acres and even more in extent, yet it is not uncommon to find the bunks four tiers in height, while three tiers is the general— l might say minimum — number. Shearers as a rule are a long-suffering though by no means meek race, and provided they can earn a " big cheque " will bear a lot of inconveniences even at the expense of health without much complaining ; but surely it is a crying shame that the laws governing the sanitation of work rooms and lodging houses should be administered in such slipshod fashion that cities only reap the benefit, while any ramshackle, swaybacked, pestiferous structure is deemed sufficiently good for up-country workmen. While, then, the waves of progress sweep our commercial centres onward and upward towards the flood tide of social refinements and industrial prosperity, it is pitiful to look backward o'er the misty-enveloped ocean of the past and note still standing on the farther shore these mouldering relics of a barbaric age.