The Bush Barber.

Woodville Examiner, Volume 3, Issue 219, 11 December 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Bush Barber.

As naturalists have discovered no species of this infliction outside of Australia, they have been led to the conclusion that the bush barber is indigenous to our sunny land. He is generally an aged curiosity, who has been a shearer in the spring 'time of his career, and a very poor kind of a shearer, too. Finding old ram stag and station rum too many even for his iron frame, he leaves mugs to rob the-lusty jumbuok of its winter attire, and dubbing himself Monsieur Caulainoonrt, or some other villainous, outlandish name, he starts as a tonsorial professor in some small up-country settlement. As a rule bis personal appearance is unwholesome and dusty, flecked with patches of his patent eucalyptus hair persuader, a horrible composition; inseparable from the bush barber, and' generally contrived out of mutton fat and gum-leaves. He is nobody’s darling ; no min in the full possession of hia senses can stand up and say truthfully that he feels any yearnings of affection towards the country haircubter. The only thing which reconciles 1 his fellows to him is the firm conviction which seizes them, as soon as they come within the influence of his respiration, that he is fading fast from among the dwellers of this mundane sphere. He has a breath that —well, if the sanitary arrangements of the district were perfect, he would have been laid away in his deep, dark grave, long, long ago. Bub that con vision is false; the bush barber never dies; anyhow, I never saw one’s funeral, and I’m getting an old man now. He dives, on to clip off the rustic’s features with hia professional shears, and give them the latest thing in town cuts, under-which operation their heads assume the appearance of a lost dog dotted with scurvy spots. Kell in with a bush barber in the days of

my youth. This was sorno time ago. "but still his memory round my heart like morning mist has clung.” I was engaged reclaiming the wilds up in the Murray district, and as my profusion of beautiful golden ringlets had not been pruned for some time, they crawled down my back in wild luxuriance. I did not mind this till people began to take me for a poet; tbeu I went to get them docked.

The local barber was a Dutchman, but ho served the usual apprenticeship out here, and had been the most paltry shearer that ever clipped a sheep, Fat-besdcd, cross-eyed, sod with a stomach which had long ago beaten hia largest vest in its struggle t«>r freedom, and now luxuriated minus the galling restraint of that arti-do of attire. He was not what the world calls beautiful, but his nature was earnest and sympathetic, and nobody had sought his ido with an axehandlo up to the time I left, Such was i’rofes-or Ihdampro : “ Haircutter and .shaver ; saws sharp* imd an I set, as his sign read. lin enthroned me on a three-legged stool, and netting a dilapidated mirror, which twisted um-b face about till it resembled the countenance of a wax doll under powerful beat, to that I could wa’c h the improvement in my appearance edect- d by his artistic treatment, he wire I in. Catching my glorious wealth of golden .s

with a tive-pr-uiged comb, In' rak'-d it all up on the t-Ij, of my head, then twisting it round one list, hui tho comb in his mouth, and putting on a strain which nearly hit'-d my scalp ..IT, he d h;* f e - .- rs and sawed away v n-inusly. I i“' 1. nr n fur ... but tho man d'-termi;v d. and after a fierce struggle it came away, and in. id and fell heavily, striking his head against a log which officiated as a scat. I felt rc-

lieved, but he came up again smiling, clutched another whisp and went at it. A more determined resistance on the part of the hair this time, bnt the Dutchman worked valiantly, and when the victory came he sighed complacently, smiled sweetly, and let the hair wander down my back. Then I rose up and entered a protest. T said — “ Now, look here, old sour sausage, I don’t mind you lifting my scalp, or pulling my ears out of position. You dug your instrument of torture into my skull, and even slit my eyelid, and I did not murmur; I bore it with lamb-like resignation ; but when you allow the capillary substance to nestle in the small of my back, and glide down my spine, I strike. I object strongly, urgently to having a head of hair shuffling about between my flannel shirt and my sensitive skin. You hear 1 It is too much misery for one to bear. Now pray continue,” and I reseated myself. Ho said, “Yah,’’and hunted up an old sock, which he stuffed diligently down around my neck. My eyes began to bulge out, and my tongue to roll under the operation, and I managed to articulate, “ You’ll excuse me, Dutchy. lam sorry to have to interrupt you again, but really I can’t have my neck corded in like a new chum’s swag, and live ; relievo me, I beseech you.” He slackened the bandage and made another start. Taking one handle of his shears in each hand, he walked around and around me, chipping at my head like a gardener at a hedge, carrying away scraps of my scalp and bits of my features in the riot, and he lolled out his tongue and worked with an earnestness and perseverance worthy of a better cause. Another peculiar characteristic of Professor Delamere 1 should like to bring before the sanguinary reader (I am getting satiated with the term “ gentle reader ”) is the fact that he never spoke whilst be had a victim under his hands. He had no observations

to make about tins state of the weather, or the flourishing appearance of the crops ; he took such breathless interest in his business, that he couhin't find time to lie about the neighbours, and ho had no opposition tradesman to villify. This is not what one expects of a hair-cutter. Wo go to the barber expecting to bo made a repository for stale intelligence and verbal garbage, and there was a sweet pleasure, a holy calm about this dumb tonsorial artist which left but one thing to be longed for, and that was a heartburning wish that he could remove my hair without taking the flesh attached. Ho finished at last, and I viewed myself a gashed and slashed, war-worn veteran ; my face was nicked out of all it* former beauty, several prominent features being partly or wholly missing ; and my head, alas * 'twas a pitiful wreck, a plan in which selections were tastefully marked out in hair, wounds and bareness. Before dusting me down, the Professor asked me would I have a shave, i said 1 will call round some other time and haw a shave. I couldn't hold another wound represent, and it would be cruel to doublolank them." lie said. “ Vves." with a calm sweet smile, ami just then a scrub-cutler came in to have bis beard mown. 1 staved to jo e him butchered. It was a sickening night, but it .-aimed me somewhat, as misery love* company. Previous to leaving, 1 read Mom, li.damero n homily, which ran tins was- : “ Adieu, old hairbrush, a fond adieu ; ymi were ;i bad shearer. but you are a much worse barb'T. I could cut hair b'-ll<;r with a knife and fork. Vour bund is not steady enough ; nature intended you fur a butch* r. This meeting has caused mo much pain, bat I harbour no ill feeling towards you. Farewell," I then bowed and withdrew,

The Goose Step. How German Army Recruits abb Drilled and Disciplined. If you leave the old Pin with s ead heart, you may have your good nature restored if the recruits are being drilled in the Exer-cien-Platz opposite. The Exercien-Platz is a large space backed by barracks ; while in front, along the street, are gymnastic apparatus and simulations of such obstacles as may be expected in an enemy’s country. The fundamental principles of German drill* mg is obedience. Orders are not propounded for discussion, French fashion, but are given, and obedience must follow immediately. When this principle has been apprehended and accepted by a recruit, it is wonderful what he will accomplish, and wonderful are the charges that take place in his physical and mental organization. The process of apprehending is the difficult, and, to the outsider, the entertaining part of the system. For instance, every recruit must jump over a good-sized cask, the cask lying on its side. When first put in front of the cask, be looks ar if he had been asked to jump over a house. From his point of view he knows the thing is utterly impossible. But that is exactly where the Germau drill differs from the French ; his point of view is not a factor. Over that cask he has got to go, if bayonets have to drive him up to it and soldiers have to fling him over. If his neck should be broken, bis military, education would, of course, cease ; if be should happen only to break a rib, be would be put to bed till his rib was mended, when hia military education would be resumed exactly where it left off. It may require several fractures to thoroughly indoctrinate the German notion of obedience to orders ; but when the recruit has once apprehended, be will pop over the cask, or anything else, like a deer. . In tbs

same way ho la taught to shoot. With a given number of cartridges he must put a given number of bullets into a target. Ho must do it, if he even were to be kept bhutfug away all his life. But there will be found plenty of ways for insuring success within a reasonable time.

The evolutions of the recruit are very entertaining when you have learned to cease fearing for hi* bonus, Kipeoially entertaining is the goose step, so called—a step »0 valuable in strengthening the muscles of the legs that it should be practiced by all pedestrians. I think I can make it so clear to every reader that he may start it off in his own room. The recruit first takes the severest military position. That need* no explanation. Ho stands very stiff and straight, head slightly thrown back, chin in, [ chest out. and the lingers stretched out along teams of his trouser-. Having been kept in the military position till he is ready to faint, be is then ordered to project the right or left foot it is immaterial with which lie begins —so far jti front of him as In? can v.hilc the keeping of the ■•ole of the to >i parallel with the surface of the ground and the knee still. The tired recruit will be sure to lose ins balance, and t«*pple over. Bui, in accordance with tin? principle of obedience, he will be kept at toppling till ho ceases to topple, and can stand in lh « extremely difficult and uncomfortable position just as long a* the Herman < iovcriKiumt may desire. He is then instructed to elevate himself on the toe of the foot on which ho is standing, and to incline the body f award until tin- sole of tim projected foot reaches the ground. He is now in another position, where perpendicularity and prere rval.on of balance are difficult, and where -A ll further appeal may . be necessary to I hr Herman principle of obs-

dience. The third motion is to bring the foot which has remained stationary up alongside of the projected foot, and to reassnme original strict military position. Then the foot not first projected is in its turn thrust forward, and so on and on. The points of the step are the length of the stride —at least three and a half feet—the preserved parallelism of the projected loot with the ground, and the preserved stiffness of the knee. Let any novice try a dozen steps of it. The muscles of his legs will ache with all the aches of dentistry. As the recruit becomes more proficient there is less pause at the military position ; the foot from behind sweeps by the stationary one into the next step, but there is always a pause when the advancing foot reaches the ground, that the full stride of the step may be felt and marked. When the recruit is further Accomplished, he takes the step with his arms thrown out from the sides, and the palms of hia hands in front. In this wav, in long lines, recruits ace exercised hour after hour, day after day, month after montht till their legs are tough os steel, and the fatigues of the longest march can be borne with comparative ease. The German soldier, of course, does not use the goose-step when he is marching into battle, for it is a gymnastic exercise ; still, when on parade he is passing the saluting.point, he uses a modification of it, so as to ’ let the inspecting officer know that it has been properly acquired. It ,is not too much to say that tlie German Empire rests on the goose step.