STRANGE PHASE OF ENGLISH LIFE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2529, 3 September 1902, Page 65

STRANGE PHASE OF ENGLISH LIFE.

There are between ten and ekvtii ihou?:ind men in Britain who from Jur.-B to September never sleep under a roof, never work. nr-VL-r ;,teal. never bee. but live tir^ly on the food and r-hflter they find in the open wcod.i and m.irsli.". Where yon > ■i-uld j>tiiive, or die of exposure, they thrive.

The-e men are entire! v a cla-« by th em-s-elves-, and aio simply iviid-men-of-the-woods. They are the real tramps — not beggars, or craft.-men ouf of work, or gipsie-a — and are about the happiest d "S under the sun. Sometimes you will see. especially if up early, abou^ tins time of year a well-made, spiuce-lnnbed mm in clothes made of strong brown cloth moving noiselessly along the side of a field — probably a tight green cap on his head.

He ;s a genuine tramp, and if }-ou caughthim up and offered him the easiest job on the countryside at £4 a week ho would laugh at you and pass on If you pre^« him he will tell you tb.it, once the leaves a™* fully out on th? oak tree*, he cannot. sleep under a roof for any money By the police (who tru^t th?in. for they do no h'.nn) these m^n arp called tramp>. but on Ihe eountt \>ide they :ire known as "biishers Dining til* v. i-iter mqmh-> ihe "bn^liei" en«ily t£«.ts emi^ovnifnt as a keeper of iviw-.stabliv- —^cldum anything else — .ird eirns ;• good wige at tendins stalled cows, foi* there i» nobody who can do it like him. Ha always insist* on sleepine m the stableloft amnng the hay ; and the cow* under tlie charge of a "busher."' though his employer may not even know he i« one. haitllv f\n fall ill. <^o perfectly does the tump und- rstaiul them.

When the r.ak leave* are out. howevf-r. life '"hu slier" lmaW.iblv throws up his job. :«nd takes to th>* woods He «e'dom goes near a home, but he gets his three square inenK <i d.iy out of the hi\>wn eaith, the water, and the tre°s ovei head Overnight h* sets .-i loni; "ire <if hor>eh in— ni ulc- from a carthorse's tai'- *<»t with honks br»attn from wire from a fence, b.iited with f.U *"brandlinc'" worms. This goes a'oni: the bottom of any quiet stream or pool Be sides this, he cut* half a dozen williyw wands and some elm-twigs, and with a bundle of to'isrh. dried hn^t-cra^s.. which h.2 gathers and prepare* himself, and always carries with l.im. he makes five or rjx small '"break -back" traps, which he s-et«. *', on'y a "busher'' can, in the "runs" on the banks of the stream where the watervoles pass at night These anima's are strange, fat little person", like a tiny guinea-pig, and they have very white, clean flesh, and are extremely palatable Then the '"bu.sh.er" goes a qu.utcr of a mile oi so away from hi* ti<jps, gathers a bed of last veai"s dried blacken <n heath, and curls up on it like a dog. He sleeps just like one, too, for the snapping of a twig 100 yds will bring him to his feet, wide awake, before you co^d count two. Half an hour before daybreak he js up and about, and he washes at the nearest brook — bathes, if it is waim enough. The "busher"' is much cleaner in habits tlian many people who live in houses. He goes quietly to the place where his traps are. and it is not once in 20 times that any one of them is empty. He takes a fat watervole from each, and then draws up his eel line. Its average yield is four to six eels of about a thiid of a pound weight each. The water-voles are cased in little dumplings of wet clay, and put in the embers of a fire which is made in a clearing, and in a few moments the eels are killed, skiuned, and spitted through their whole length witli sharp blackthorn twigs. They are roasted skilfully over the fire, which the "bu.slier" always build-? with wood that makes little smoke and much hot ashes. The watervoles, which feed on the juicy white roots of the rushes, are delicious eating, for when ihe clay dumplings are split the well-cooked vole tumbles out, his skin and fur sticking behind in the hard clay. The "buuher" makes a big breakfast. It is his chief meal.

When it is over he sets off on his daily U-anipj and geneiallv reaches $ fiojouicc pj;

ni.tish a do/en miles away by midday. He always travels by the sides of the hedges, not siie.king. but uotting along, spry and nnise'tss. l-ke a dog. Only here and there he str.kes on to the it, ad, and then he w n'ks with a springy step, quite unlike the o-din.uv shuttling vagra'it. Fut 'unch he ge nerally depends on small birdt — the chaftiuches .uid thrushes mostly — and about a dozen or 20 of them, with a little fiemlockroot. will make him a good meal. His vay ot earning his lunch is unique; no bird-catcher cm rival it. He carries with h:m some of the gnm that oozes from the cherry tiee.v, and the gluey moisture from the hcrse chestnuts. This he bakes slightly, and mixes with a little led earth by a process which only "bushers" know — .«nd they will not "give it away."

Then he chooses, seemingly by instinct, rhe likeliest coiner of the wood, according to the time of day. covers a dozen or so of pine needles with the sticky stuff, ard sets them about in the branches of young trees. 'I hen the "busher' retires a little way. and imitates the call-notes of vfiiioubirds. The imitation i- smiplv perfect, and the birds quickly gather, fill l of cuiiosity. The "busher'" never hide-., but remain* still as a stone, and calK Soon a bird will brush against one of tli'e prepared pine needles, and falls, his wings and legs bound IV the sticky threads that draw out from tlie needle It is an extraordinary sight, and before long there aie a dozen or more or the larger birds help 1c««1 e«« on the ground The "busher" plucks and roasts them neat'y, and this is one of his favourite meaK Linnets are among his principal prey.

With it he generally eats a plant that i.- a deadly poison — the common hemlock, vhi' b abounds eveiywhere. Its leaves and stnlk are so unwholesome that cattle, which not infrequent ly eat them, genera'ly die of the effects, and a little of the juice of the ]>ant will kill a full-grown! man. Notwithstanding tins, the root of the plant is latge. c-iean. and wholesome It needs only boiling twite, and there is a good sound article of food, that swarm« everywhere. It is rue of the '"hii-heiV stand-bys, and be boils it in a small pet that he"aVa\s caines somewhere in his clothe- But "it is only cne of a dorzen roots the "busher" knows* of. and you would put one of the tube down in any litf.e coppice in the kingdom, and in half an hour he would find himself a L'<-od wholesome meal, and plenty of it. He never touches spirits or beer, hiit sometunes b-ews a dt ink fiom son-el leaves, whif-h. however, is anything but pleasant to the taste. The •busher" is always a fiist-flass heib doctor, and knows how to set broken bones often better than even a trained M.D

Never ye' has any "busher" been brought into court for any offence, though on several occasions one of the tube has given valuable help to the police. None but the most ignorant gamekeepers, either, are "down upon" the "busher." for they know he never peaches, w distuibs the pheasant covers, and he aids them, if treated civilly, vjth information that brings many a confirmed game-thief to book, for the w sliest poachei is a bung'ar compared to the true "bu-her "