Life on a Gumfield.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 29, 16 July 1892, Page 706

Life on a Gumfield.

HOW THE GUMDIGGER LIVES

IT is, and always has been, a mystery to one half of the world how the other half lives. Even in this colony, with its comparatively speaking small population, not one in a hundred, except those who are actually engaged in the industry, have the slightest idea of what gum-digging means. Occasionally letters appear in the daily press, and every now and then bank clerks shake their heads sagely over the fortunes which gumdiggers are supposed to be making. Undoubtedly the work is profitable at times ; at present it is especially so, and diggers are earning good wages, but it must be remembered that the work is arduous, and the hours, especially in summer, are long. The amount done varies with different camps. Some are hard-working camps, some lazy, and then, of course, there are the men who work alone. The digger you read about, however—the man who earns £3 and perhaps more a week, has to be up early and to bed comparatively late. He must be up by daybreak in summer—up and off to work after a hastily-snatched breakfast. A kit and billy with provisions and tea for the day must be carried, and this, with the paraphernalia of the trade, bag for gum and tools, is quite a? big a load as the heart of reasonable man desires. Work must go on till sundown, and this, in the long summer days, means twelve hours’

digging per day. Then the trudge home in the dusk, supper is cooked and eaten, and then no bed but three or four hours’ scraping. The scraping is terribly fatiguing work, and to the new chum the prospect of the same business on the morrow and day after day seems a little appalling. In hard-working camps, too, Sunday morning is devoted to scraping. Then it is not so unpleasant; sitting out in the air with a pipe and yarns going the round. Life, even a gumdigger’s life, seems worth living. A sketch of a gumdigger’s tent under these circumstances is given, and conveys a good impression of the reality. Another, of the digger at work, is a realistic sketch. And the tired, meditative look of the digger making his tea is eminently true to life. The men, with fair average luck and after a hard day’s work, consider themselves lucky if they get a quarter of a hundredweight, but some of the best men have frequently averaged threequarters of a hundredweight every day. A great place for gumdiggers, in the north, is Dargaville. Walking out from that delightful township, following the railway to the Flax mill, and then following the West track some distance, you would pass the scene of such campsas'King’sCamp,’ ‘Pollock’s,’ ‘ Billie the Mouser’s, and ‘Scottie’s.’ Bearing slightly to the left at the latter camp you would come to what once was a gumdiggers’ camp with the euphemistic title of the New Jerusalem. Some sixty men inhabited this camp and gave the lease a good shaking. Most of the gum about this district is found in the low-lying swamps and ‘basins’ (swamps high up amongst the sand hills, so called todistinguish them from the low-lying swamps). These ‘ basins ’ are only in a condition to dig during a dry summer. The gum in them lies from two to

three feet deep and is pretty -well scattered through the whole basin, so that the man who can turn over the largest paddock has the best chance of a big load. The spear is little used here except in the big swamps, where the Maoris hook gum at a depth of from ten to fourteen feet. Stores are brought by the lessees’ carts and pack-horses, and the gum is taken away by them as the men, individually, have their loads ready, from half to three quarters of a ton. The diggers are charged full prices for stores as will be allowed from the following items taken from a bill of January:—Potatoes, 12s per cwt. (over Sydneyfamine price), Hour, 8s per 5011 b., tea, 3s per lb., coffee, 2s per lb., bread, lid per 41b. loaf ! but most men bake their own bread in camp ovens. Some people will hardly credit us when we state that in thisdistrictthe men ‘dig’ for their firewood! Nevertheless such is the case. There is no bush within five miles, so they have to dig up kauri timber to burn. For baking purposes they mostly use lignite which is found on the beach. All work and no play, however, cannot be obtained even on a gumfield. Amusement is a safety-valve for the constantly overflowing animal spirits even of gumdiggers. Every now and then there are expeditions to town, and cheques are knocked down with lavish prodigality.

On page 722 some further pictures of gumdiggers and gumdigging are given. The central figure is an admirable type of the large and useful class of men engaged in the industry. The other sketches show a ‘ patch ’in the morning and again in the evening after the devastating hand of the diggers has been across it. Then there is the man who digs two days and drinks three, and a very characteristic glimpse of the same unfortunate creature’s home. A good picture is given of the steady settler’s whare. It is not perhaps palatial, but after a hard day’s work it seems monstrous comfortable to its weary denizen. Some day there will be an Adam L. Gordon of the gumlields, and then the world will learn something of the romance of what seems a most prosaic occupation. Yet no doubt the life has its attractions. The digger is his own master. He works when he wills and plays when he chooses. If lie works hard he has the satisfaction of feeling that it is for himself, and maybe his family. If, on the other hand, he likes to take things easy, he can do so without any chance of ‘ the sack,’ but of course with a proportionate decrease in the matter of earnings. Theie is, too, an element of luck in the work, which is eminently attractive to many. A man may at any moment strike a lucky patch which will enable him to fill his bag in a very few minutes. Hough and ready the gumdigger class is, as a rule, easy going and good-natured, and eminently honest. Every section of society is represented in the ranks. More than one sprig of the British peerage has, or perhaps does, wield a gum spear.