Larrikins, Bush Tales and Other Great Australian Stories
Page 7
The custom appeared in Hobart in the early 1840s and seems to have been observed there, and in Launceston, until at least the 1870s. Chimney Sweeps’ Day was also recorded in Sydney during the 1840s. However, the dramatic seasonal and other differences took a heavy toll on this British custom as the nineteenth century progressed. Newspaper descriptions of the Sweeps’ Day in Tasmania from the 1840s to the 1870s reveal an almost annual shrinking of numbers, gaiety and enthusiasm, as the antipodean seasons, public opinion and, it seems, a declining need for chimney sweeping combined to render the celebration pointless.
But there may have been additional reasons for the demise of Jack-in-the-Green. May Day, later Labour Day, celebrations have long had a clear political–industrial agenda, deriving from the struggle for the eight-hour working day that occupied Australian industrial relations for decades through the nineteenth century. The earlier craft guild May Day observation of Jack-in-the-Green could also be associated with pointed political comment and activity. In 1857, a poem titled ‘Reflections by a Chimney Sweep’, or ‘chummy’ as they were known, was specifically critical of politicians and the political system. It began:
I’m glad I’m not an M.L.A.
Least ways in Hobart Town;
I’d rather much a chummy be,
And earn an honest crown.
The poem continued:
If we were sent to parliament
We wouldn’t mop and mow,
Like apes and other animals
I’ve seen at Wombwell’s show.
Later, it criticises the Tasmanian attorney-general by name. Two years before this poem was published, the ‘King of the Hobart Sweeps’, John Gordon, upset many citizens by taking part in the Jack-in-the-Green procession with his ribbons the colours of a candidate in the local elections.
Other imported customs also gradually faded with the century. The merrymaking Whitsuntide customs associated with the Christian feast of Pentecost, still featured throughout Britain today, seem to have ceased in Australia by the 1890s, while May Day was only rescued from oblivion and school dancing classes by its association with the trade union movement. In many cases, as in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, the spirit of the times was against the old customs, often considered backwards, silly and uncomfortably superstitious by the Victorian middle-class mind. After welcoming the Jack-in-the-Green custom in Hobart during the 1840s, by the 1860s the local newspapers were hoping that this ‘foolish custom’ was quickly dying out.
The dragon of Big Gold Mountain
They came in their thousands: Chinese gold-diggers drawn by the hope of striking it rich in the rushes that began in 1851. The Chinese called the Victorian diggings Dai Gum San, meaning Big Gold Mountain, and by the middle of the 1850s there were around 4000 on the Bendigo fields, many having walked overland from the port of Robe in South Australia, a distance of almost 500 kilometres.
Fearful of Chinese competition and also of the ‘yellow peril’, the Victorian government imposed a restrictive entry tax on Chinese hopefuls, although there were no such restrictions in the colony of South Australia. The Chinese were industrious and successful in their gold mining, attracting prejudice as well as economic jealousy from the predominantly European goldfields population. There was violence, discrimination and numerous attempts to stop or restrict Chinese gold-seekers.
But there was a brighter side. The riches of the gold rushes soon generated prosperous communities in Ballarat and Bendigo and in 1869 (some sources say 1870), a fair and procession were established as an Easter celebration and to raise funds for charity. The Chinese joined the parade a couple of years later and within ten years had become the major feature of the Bendigo Easter Fair, as it became known. Australia had seen nothing like it before. Traditional costumes, flags and decorations of all kinds were imported from China in large quantities and displayed during the parade. In 1892 the longest dragon in the world arrived, a fearsome five-clawed beast known as loong, the Chinese word for ‘dragon’. Loong has continued to be the major feature of the fair, along with other Chinese customs, some of which no longer exist in China.
As well as the Chinese contribution, the early fairs were extravaganzas of wild animal shows, theatrical performances, magicians, singing, art displays, dancing booths, fairground rides and a sideshow alley, as well as the inevitable hucksters. Police had to remove a three-card-trick shyster at the 1874 fair. That year there were 20,000 paid admissions, with plenty to drink and plenty of legal gambling in the form of lotteries. The opening ceremony and grand procession were gala events, with orchestras, a Chinese band, representatives of various friendly societies and masonic lodges, a wild man, and ‘lady’ cricketers ‘in their gay blue and pink uniforms, in three vehicles, forming a galaxy of beauty that attracted all eyes’. Following the fire brigade there was a presumably spoof ‘His Celestial Majesty Jam Je Bu-ic-ker’:
… preceded by six retainers, all in gorgeous attire. His Majesty was dressed in loose trousers and Chinese jumper of rich blue satin magnificently worked with flowers and dragons in different colors. Around his neck was a yellow silk scarf beautifully worked with flowers, a black cap with rosette of peacocks’ feathers adding to the effect. He carried an umbrella of novel pattern, there being one large oval of yellow silk, fringed with blue, while on the top of that was a small parasol of red silk fringed with yellow. The dress was a gorgeous one. A fine tail 4 feet long, completed the outfit. The dresses of his retainers were of richly flowered chintz robe with blue trousers, with black stripes, while on their backs and breasts were rosettes of peacocks’ feathers.
At night, even more people seemed to crowd the scene. The grounds were lit up with multi-coloured Chinese lanterns strung between the trees, ‘giving a most fairy-like and enchanting appearance to the scene’. The night finished with a fireworks display watched and applauded by thousands and, ‘It was not until a late hour that the grounds were cleared.’
Sun Loong first appeared at the 1892 procession and was an immediate hit:
The Chinese made a magnificent display nearly a thousand of them marching, and their brilliant raiment, queer musical instruments, and quaint battle weapons created much interest. A novel feature of the procession was a huge dragon. This was 200ft long supported by 80 Chinamen, and consisted of [a] wire framework, covered with gorgeous silk. The dragon was made to sway about, whilst its rolling eyes, lolling tongue, and generally ferocious appearance were sources of great wonderment and consternation to the children. The dragon was preceded by copious discharges of fireworks and revolving balls, which were symbolical of stars that the dragon was seeking to devour.
Today, the celebration remains a major local, state and national event known as the Bendigo Easter Festival. Still organised by the descendants of the original Bendigo Easter Fair Society, it is the oldest continually running festival of its kind in the country.
4
A fair go
Do you call this a fair go?
Shearers’ strike leaders being arrested by police, 1891
ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S most powerful beliefs is the idea expressed in the phrase ‘a fair go’. Convicts, swagmen and workers of all kinds, as well as Indigenous people, have felt compelled to express their discontent and ask for a fair go in stories that go to the heart of the Australian sense of national identity.
In 2006, a survey showed that 91 per cent of Australians put ‘a fair go’ at the top of their list of values. This is nothing new, of course. The idea that it is important for everyone in the country to have equal opportunity goes back to the earliest years of modern Australia, closely associated with the enforced levelling of convict society, with pioneering and with the creed of mateship.
Black Mary
Armed with a musket and a brace of pistols, she became known to history and legend as ‘Black Mary’. But the name she went by in colonial Tasmania was Mary Cockerell. Like many Indigenous Tasmanian women of the time, Mary worked as a servant for a settler family named Cockerell, takin
g that name as her own. She became the lover of Michael Howe, joined his bushranging gang and became an effective accomplice until the gang was attacked by soldiers. During this attack, Howe allegedly wounded the heavily pregnant Mary in order to facilitate his own escape. An early Tasmanian settler recalled the events many years later when the layers of folklore had settled over the facts:
Howe and the girl, Mary, were traced and pursued near Jericho by a party of soldiers, and being hard pressed, Howe, to facilitate his own escape, fired at the poor black girl, who was wounded and captured. Her injuries proved but slight, and the treatment received from Howe led to her turning against her former associates, and she subsequently became of great assistance to the military as a female ‘black tracker’.
Howe wrote to the Governor offering to give himself up and furnish important information about his former associates and their haunts, and the offer was accepted, Howe arriving in Hobart on 29th April, 1817. He underwent various examinations, but little information was obtained from him, and at length, on the plea that confinement was impairing his health, Howe was allowed to go about with a constable, an indulgence he repaid by escaping in July.
Watts, who had once been a companion of Howe, now determined to save his own neck by capturing Howe, and communicated with the authorities. With the assistance of Black Mary and a stockkeeper named Drewe, Howe was run down and taken while asleep. They bound him, and were marching him to Hobart, Watts being in front with a loaded gun, and Drewe, who was unarmed, following Howe, when Howe disengaged his hands, and drawing a concealed knife, with a sudden spring stabbed Watts in the back. As Watts fell Howe seized his gun and shot Drewe dead. Black Mary escaped into the bush, while Howe was swearing he would shoot Watts as soon as he loaded his gun. Watts managed to crawl into the bush, when Mary returned with assistance, and Howe made his escape. Watts was removed to Hobart, but died three days after his arrival.
Howe was not heard of for some time, but necessity compelled him to commit robberies on distant stockkeepers. After his daring exploit none dare venture it [sic] personal attack upon him, but Black Mary was continually on his heels, guiding the military.
Howe had been transported for highway robbery in 1811, escaped two years later and quickly became a scourge of the settlers, attacking their properties, stealing their stock and mistreating many of those he took captive. It was also rumoured that many were in mutually beneficial relationships with the outlaw in order to protect their lives and property.
After his own lucky escape from the wrath of Black Mary, Howe disappeared for some time. He began styling himself ‘lieutenant governor of the woods’ in dark contrast to the official lieutenant governor of the colony. During this period he had a substantial 100-guinea reward placed on his head, later doubled, with any convict who caught him guaranteed a pardon and free passage home.
Howe was tracked by an Aboriginal convict from New South Wales known as Musquito, who had been captured in 1805 and took up the hunt to gain a passage back to his country. Then, towards the end of 1818:
A soldier named Pugh, of the 48th Regiment, and a stockkeeper named Worrall determined to capture Howe. They entered into a league with a kangaroo hunter named Warburton, who agreed to join them. Howe had to meet Warburton, who had agreed to let him have some ammunition if he would come to his (Warburton’s) hut. Howe, after great hesitation, ventured into the hut, where Pugh and Worrall were concealed. As soon as Howe entered he cocked his gun, and Pugh fired at him, but missed. Howe retreated a few paces and then returned the fire, but also missed, and Worrall fired, but with no better effect. Howe then retired, loading his gun as he retreated backwards, and was followed by the other men. Howe fired at Warburton and fatally wounded him, and was then rushed by the two others, a desperate encounter taking place. Howe fought long and died hard, dangerously wounding Pugh, but was overpowered, his head being battered to pieces. They then cut off Howe’s head, which was taken to Hobart, the body being buried near the scene…
On their way back to Hobart, the bounty hunters met the prominent settler Dr Ross and his travelling companions, who asked them what they had in the bloodstained blue bag they carried. The men ‘good-naturedly opening the bag, showed them a human head’. Then:
Taking it by the hair, he held it up to our view, with the greatest exultation imaginable, and for a moment we thought we had indeed got amongst murderers, pondering between resistance and the chance of succour or escape, when we were agreeably relieved by the information that the bleeding head had belonged two days ago to the body of the notorious bushranger, Michael Howe, for whom, dead or alive, very large rewards had been offered. He had been caught at a remote solitary hut on the banks of the River Shannon, and in his attempt to break away from the soldiers who apprehended him, had been shot through the back, so that the painful disseverment of the head and trunk, the result of which we now witnessed, had been only a postmortem operation.
Howe’s severed head was then displayed in Hobart town as proof of the rule of law. It was a popular display with the colonists.
While these events were playing out, Mary had been sent to Sydney to prevent her returning to Howe’s side. Now that he was dead, she was allowed back to Hobart. While Worrall and Pugh were rewarded for the death of Howe, Mary’s only reward for her service to the Crown was free victuals from the government stores. Nor did they have to hand these out for long. She died, probably of tuberculosis, the following winter. Musquito received no reward at all and went on to become a threat to colonial order in his own right, partly as a result of the failure of the government to honour the promise of repatriation. He was captured, tried and hanged on dubious legal grounds in 1825.
The Tambaroora line
When the goldfields towns of Hill End, Sofala and Tambaroora started growing from the early 1850s, they needed transport links with Bathurst and beyond. In those days it was only a coach and horse to transport people and goods from place to place, and there were carriers of all kinds, none more colourful than Bill Maloney.
Small operators like Maloney were threatened when Cobb & Co. began in the 1860s. Not only could the new competition boast better and faster coaches, but they were organised along corporate lines that gave them an extra edge. According to legend, Bill Maloney took this in his stride. The only way to hold his own against the rivals was to drive faster and along shorter but more dangerous routes. Bill was skilled at this, but whenever he did encounter or pass a Cobb & Co. coach on the road, he bawled out a special ditty he had composed to the tune of a popular bush song:
Now look here, Cobb & Co.,
A lesson take from me,
If you meet me on the road
Don’t you make too free,
For if you do you’ll surely rue…
You think you do it fine,
But I’m a tip-and-slasher
Of the Tambaroora line.
Then into the boastful chorus:
I can hold them, steer them
And drive them to and fro,
With ribbons well in hand, me boys,
I can make ’em go.
With me foot well on the brake, lads,
I’m bound to make them shine,
For I’m a tip-and-slasher
Of the Tambaroora line.
This went on for years. Cobb & Co. tried to buy Hill out but he would not budge. Although Cobb & Co. could offer a better service, most of Bill’s customers admired his spirit and travelled with him whenever they could. And eventually, Bill won. Cobb & Co. decided to suspend its Bathurst operation. Shortly before closing down, the managing director of Cobb & Co., James Rutherford (see Chapter 11), invited his tenacious local rival to the factory where the company built its cutting-edge coaches. They walked through the works until they came to an especially well-built and -equipped coach painted out in the same colours that Bill used for his own coaches.
‘What do you think of this one, then, Bill?’ asked Rutherford.
Despite himself, Bill was impressed a
nd said so, wishing that he could afford such a fine piece of equipment. Rutherford then handed Bill the reins and said he was gifting it to him for being such a worthy competitor.
Maloney received this magnanimous gift with gratitude and used it for many successful years on the Tambaroora line, later succeeded by his son.
Mates
Australia’s tradition of mateship can be traced from the rough necessity of convict survival, through the tribulations of pioneering, the excitement of the gold rushes and the formation of trade unions from the 1890s, and finding its most evocative location on the ridges of Gallipoli and the trenches of the Western Front during World War I. Along the way, a number of outstanding examples of men’s loyalty to each other include Ned Kelly returning to the fight at Glenrowan to help his mates and the story of Simpson and his donkey, among many others. C.E.W. Bean, a major influence on the Anzac legend, wrote that the typical Australian was rarely religious and:
So far as he held a prevailing creed, it was a romantic one inherited from the gold-miner and the bushman, of which the chief article was that a man should at all times and at any cost stand by his mate. That was and is the one law, which the good Australian must never break. It is bred in the child and stays with him through life…
At the shining end of this spectrum, mateship is an admirable quality. At its darker extremes it can exhibit shades of misogyny. This is why the topic has always been controversial. Even mateship’s greatest singer recognised its realities: many of Henry Lawson’s stories and poems celebrate mateship, if with a jaundiced eye. In one titled A Sketch of Mateship, Lawson tells it like it probably was: