Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/90

become so formidable a disease as when the contrary is the case. Hence the experience with regard to sheep, both of settlers and labourers from thence, was of little avail in a country so differently circumstanced as Port Phillip. In Sydney, on the contrary, the system, with regard to both these points, was the same as at Port Phillip; and it is from the settlers and old hands of the Sydney district that we have learned most of what we know with respect to the improved management of sheep and the eradication of scab. On the whole, the old hands have been of essential service to the country, and when kept in order by persons who understand what is their duty, and who make them perform it, they are useful servants. They are, however, a disagreeable set of men to deal with; rarely, if ever, identifying their master's interests with their own, but looking upon him as a person to be overreached and imposed on, and despising him when he permits them to do so. The person who excites their greatest respect is the man who is alive to their attempts, (or, as they express it themselves, who drops down to their moves,) and the highest encomium they can pass on such an one is, that there are no flies about him. They are very fond of change, wandering about the country generally in pairs, and rarely remaining more than a year in one service. They are to be found more at the distant stations and in newly-settled country where wages are higher, and there is more difficulty to contend with, than in the more civilized parts where the emigrants have in a great measure superseded them. Still, through the whole country the great mass of shearers, splitters, and even bullock-