In the Days When the World Was Wide [33]
Brown himself would do the feeding, and the missus used to `fly' -- She is flying with the angels, if there's justice up on high, For she died on Cambaroora when the STAR began to go, And was buried like the diggers buried diggers long ago.
. . . . .
Lord, that press! It was a jumper -- we could seldom get it right, And were lucky if we averaged a hundred in the night. Many nights we'd sit together in the windy hut and fold, And I helped the thing a little when I struck a patch of gold; And we battled for the diggers as the papers seldom do, Though when the diggers errored, why, we touched the diggers too. Yet the paper took the fancy of that roaring mining town, And the diggers sent a nugget with their sympathy to Brown.
Oft I sat and smoked beside him in the listening hours of night, When the shadows from the corners seemed to gather round the light -- When his weary, aching fingers, closing stiffly round the pen, Wrote defiant truth in language that could touch the hearts of men -- Wrote until his eyelids shuddered -- wrote until the East was grey: Wrote the stern and awful lessons that were taught him in his day; And they knew that he was honest, and they read his smallest par, For I think the diggers' Bible was the CAMBAROORA STAR.
Diggers then had little mercy for the loafer and the scamp -- If there wasn't law and order, there was justice in the camp; And the manly independence that is found where diggers are Had a sentinel to guard it in the CAMBAROORA STAR. There was strife about the Chinamen, who came in days of old Like a swarm of thieves and loafers when the diggers found the gold -- Like the sneaking fortune-hunters who are always found behind, And who only shepherd diggers till they track them to the `find'.
Charlie wrote a slinging leader, calling on his digger mates, And he said: `We think that Chinkies are as bad as syndicates. What's the good of holding meetings where you only talk and swear? Get a move upon the Chinkies when you've got an hour to spare.' It was nine o'clock next morning when the Chows began to swarm, But they weren't so long in going, for the diggers' blood was warm. Then the diggers held a meeting, and they shouted: `Hip hoorar! Give three ringing cheers, my hearties, for the CAMBAROORA STAR.'
But the Cambaroora petered, and the diggers' sun went down, And another sort of people came and settled in the town; The reefing was conducted by a syndicate or two, And they changed the name to `Queensville', for their blood was very blue. They wanted Brown to help them put the feathers in their nests, But his leaders went like thunder for their vested interests, And he fought for right and justice and he raved about the dawn Of the reign of Man and Reason till his ads. were all withdrawn.
He was offered shares for nothing in the richest of the mines, And he could have made a fortune had he run on other lines; They abused him for his leaders, and they parodied his rhymes, And they told him that his paper was a mile behind the times. `Let the times alone,' said Charlie, `they're all right, you needn't fret; For I started long before them, and they haven't caught me yet. But,' says he to me, `they're coming, and they're not so very far -- Though I left the times behind me they are following the STAR.
`Let them do their worst,' said Charlie, `but I'll never drop the reins While a single scrap of paper or an ounce of ink remains: I've another truth to tell them, though they tread me in the dirt, And I'll print another issue if I print it on my shirt.' So we fought the battle bravely, and we did our very best Just to make the final issue quite as lively as the rest. And the swells in Cambaroora talked of feathers and of tar When they read the final issue of the CAMBAROORA STAR.
Gold is stronger than the tongue is -- gold is stronger than the pen: They'd have squirmed in Cambaroora had I found a nugget then; But in vain we scraped together every penny we could get, For they fixed us with their boycott, and the plant was seized for debt. 'Twas a storekeeper
. . . . .
Lord, that press! It was a jumper -- we could seldom get it right, And were lucky if we averaged a hundred in the night. Many nights we'd sit together in the windy hut and fold, And I helped the thing a little when I struck a patch of gold; And we battled for the diggers as the papers seldom do, Though when the diggers errored, why, we touched the diggers too. Yet the paper took the fancy of that roaring mining town, And the diggers sent a nugget with their sympathy to Brown.
Oft I sat and smoked beside him in the listening hours of night, When the shadows from the corners seemed to gather round the light -- When his weary, aching fingers, closing stiffly round the pen, Wrote defiant truth in language that could touch the hearts of men -- Wrote until his eyelids shuddered -- wrote until the East was grey: Wrote the stern and awful lessons that were taught him in his day; And they knew that he was honest, and they read his smallest par, For I think the diggers' Bible was the CAMBAROORA STAR.
Diggers then had little mercy for the loafer and the scamp -- If there wasn't law and order, there was justice in the camp; And the manly independence that is found where diggers are Had a sentinel to guard it in the CAMBAROORA STAR. There was strife about the Chinamen, who came in days of old Like a swarm of thieves and loafers when the diggers found the gold -- Like the sneaking fortune-hunters who are always found behind, And who only shepherd diggers till they track them to the `find'.
Charlie wrote a slinging leader, calling on his digger mates, And he said: `We think that Chinkies are as bad as syndicates. What's the good of holding meetings where you only talk and swear? Get a move upon the Chinkies when you've got an hour to spare.' It was nine o'clock next morning when the Chows began to swarm, But they weren't so long in going, for the diggers' blood was warm. Then the diggers held a meeting, and they shouted: `Hip hoorar! Give three ringing cheers, my hearties, for the CAMBAROORA STAR.'
But the Cambaroora petered, and the diggers' sun went down, And another sort of people came and settled in the town; The reefing was conducted by a syndicate or two, And they changed the name to `Queensville', for their blood was very blue. They wanted Brown to help them put the feathers in their nests, But his leaders went like thunder for their vested interests, And he fought for right and justice and he raved about the dawn Of the reign of Man and Reason till his ads. were all withdrawn.
He was offered shares for nothing in the richest of the mines, And he could have made a fortune had he run on other lines; They abused him for his leaders, and they parodied his rhymes, And they told him that his paper was a mile behind the times. `Let the times alone,' said Charlie, `they're all right, you needn't fret; For I started long before them, and they haven't caught me yet. But,' says he to me, `they're coming, and they're not so very far -- Though I left the times behind me they are following the STAR.
`Let them do their worst,' said Charlie, `but I'll never drop the reins While a single scrap of paper or an ounce of ink remains: I've another truth to tell them, though they tread me in the dirt, And I'll print another issue if I print it on my shirt.' So we fought the battle bravely, and we did our very best Just to make the final issue quite as lively as the rest. And the swells in Cambaroora talked of feathers and of tar When they read the final issue of the CAMBAROORA STAR.
Gold is stronger than the tongue is -- gold is stronger than the pen: They'd have squirmed in Cambaroora had I found a nugget then; But in vain we scraped together every penny we could get, For they fixed us with their boycott, and the plant was seized for debt. 'Twas a storekeeper