Alcohol & Tobacco
Australia’s relationship with alcohol started rocky when the colonial authorities arrived on the First Fleet with 500 gallons of brandy and 1600 litres of rum. We also know that subsequent ships delivered more and more grog, and, at one stage, rum was the colony’s currency.
The gold rush also proved thirsty work, and grog shanties were amongst the first tents erected to cater for the fossickers. Later, shanty tents became hotels and, along with cafes, banks and post offices, the main attraction.
As the gold petered out and was replaced by company mines, the miners, especially those hauling coal, washed the dust down with dark ale. In the bush, drovers, stockmen, station cooks, rabbitters and the other members of the itinerant worker’s army flushed their season’s cheque in lambing-down joints.
The city folks were also getting their share of drink, and taverns gave way to large hotels. The Australian custom of the ‘shout’ became the misfortune of many a man and woman.
The enthusiastic drinking was often met with the equally enthusiastic banging of the tambourine, especially by the Salvationists who championed teetotalism. Both sides of this war sang songs.
Tobacco seems to have travelled the same pathways as alcohol, and it wasn’t uncommon for women and children to smoke pipes.
There are so many stories, including jokes, about the bushman coming to the city. Usually they are tales of woe. Just as the bushman could be ‘lambed down’ in the bush, he was also fair game for the city. This song tells of a bushman’s visit to Sydney – but it could well be placed in any big city across Australia. ‘Big Gun’ refers to our bushman’s premier ranking in the shearing shed – he was a very good shearer …. and, possibly, a bad judge of character?
Enos Newitt (born 1882) sings a drinking song., ‘She Was A Virgin of Nineteen’. Recorded, Bundaberg, 1966, by Bob Michell and Stan Arthur. I subsequently found a version in the Cole’s Funniest Songbook In The World (Melbourne circa 1890s). If you’re going to drink – you need drinking songs!
The Australian Bush Orchestra play ‘Bottle-O’. from the sheet music in the National Library of Australia Collection.
Warren Fahey recites ‘The Drinker’s Dream’.
Declan Affley sings ‘A Jug Of This’
Brad Tate sings ‘Boozing, Jolly, Boozing’
Warren Fahey sings ‘Home Sweet Home’
Art Leonard sings ‘The Face On The Barroom Floor’
Warren Fahey sings ‘The Hardest Bloody Job I Ever Had’
Warren Fahey (accompanied on concertina) sings ‘The Road To Gundagai’ (aka ‘Lazy Harry’s’
Warren Fahey sings ‘Shickered’
Simon McDonald sings ‘Billy Brink’
This is the original Burns poem/song which was based on the older traditional ballad. Beautiful imagery. Surprisingly published in a ‘girlie’ magazine in Sydney in the twenties.
| POOR JOHN BARLEYCORN: A BALLAD There was three kings into the east, Three kings both great and high, And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn should die. They took a plough and plough’d him down, Put clods upon his head, And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn was dead. But the cheerful Spring came kindly on’ And show’rs began to fall; John Barleycorn got up again, And sore surpris’d them all. The sultry suns of Summer came, And he grew thick and strong: His head weel arm’d wi pointed spears, That no one should him wrong. The sober Autumn enter’d mild, When he grew wan and pale; His bendin joints and drooping head Show’d he began to fail. His colour sicken’d more and more, He faded into age; And then his enemies began To show their deadly rage. They’ve taen a weapon, long and sharp, And cut him by the knee; They ty’d him fast upon a cart, Like a rogue for forgerie. They laid him down upon his back, And cudgell’d him full sore. They hung him up before the storm, And turn’d him o’er and o’er. They filled up a darksome pit With water to the brim, They heav’d in John Barleycorn- There, let him sink or swim! They laid him upon the floor, To work him farther woe; And still, as signs of life appear’d, They toss’d him to and fro. They wasted o’er a scorching flame The marrow of his bones; But a miller us’d him worst of all, For he crush’d him between two stones. And they hae taen his very hero blood And drank it round and round; And still the more and more they drank, Their joy did more abound. John Barleycorn was a hero bold, Of noble enterprise; For if you do but taste his blood, ‘Twill make your courage rise. ‘Twill make a man forget his woe; ‘Twill heighten all his joy: ‘Twill make the widow’s heart to sing, Tho the tear were in her eye. Then let us toast John Barleycorn, Each man a glass in hand; And may his great posterity Ne’er fail in old Scotland! (Robert Burns) Pinkie Magazine. 1927 Sydney |
| AN IRISHMAN’S TOAST Whiskey, you are me darlin’ I love you both early and late, To you above all other liquors I pledge me whole estate. If I were so low as a beggar, You’d make me as high as a king Oh, whiskey, when you’re in my tummy, I rattle, I roar, and I sing Pinkie Magazine. March 1 1927 Sydney |
| IN THE SHADE OF THE OLD BREWER-EE The wind among the breeze was softly winding The brook was gently brooking to the break The village pubs at night were slowly closing The row was like the end up of a wake We stood beneath the brewery you & I dear Your blushing nose you gently turned away I can’t forget the way your breath was barking dear I can’t forget it though of course I may In the shade of the old brewer ee With the beer in your eyes I could see When your dear voice I heard Like the old mutton bird Still it sounded like music to me I could hear the sweet buzz of your breath As you said I’ll be drunk to my death With a skin full of beer I’ll be waiting my (hic )dear In the shade of the old brewer ee In other pubs I’ve staggered since I left you I’ve boozed in four penny bars far far away And oft in thirsty moments do I wonder If you’re as full as I am ev’ry day No more I’ll see you lower away the pewters The photo of the brewery still I keep And for the dear old spot I’m ever longing So fill em up again my dear sweet (Parody: The shade of the Old Apple Tree) IMPERIAL SONGSTER 28. 1899 |
| ONWARD, TEMPERANCE SOLDIERS Onward, Temp’rance soldiers, Let your war cry sound; Plant the victors’ banner On Australia’s ground. On till men , uprising, Join your noble band! On till drink is driven From this Southern land. Chorus Onward, Temp’rance soldiers With your flag unfurled; On till songs of triumph Ting throughout this world. Through the tyrant’s warfare Home are filled with woe; Lonely hearts are breaking; Tears of anguish flow; Little children perish, Youth’s bright hopes prove vain. Strongest men are fettered Countless thousands slain. Thanks for vict’ries glorious To your Leader be; Slaves of deadly error By the truth made free. Homes once dark , now brightened By Hope’s cheering rays, Hearts, once sad, now lightened – All unite in praise. Onward, Temp’rance soldiers, Girded for the fight; Armed with heavy weapons, Sure that Right is Might. Ever be united, Heart to heart as one; Never cease your fighting Till the conflict’s won. SOURCE:The Australian Prohibition Songster Published by Harkness Publications, Geelong Victoria. n.d. Mitchell ML784.68/2 TUNE: St Gertrude |
| THE MELONCHOLY JARVEY I’m a broke down bushman, and sadly afraid That soon of tis child a wind-up will be made; For I’ve been basely jilted by Susan Scraggs, who Is barmaid to a pub-li-can at Woolloomooloo. She was such a screamer, you’ll see fairer few Than pretty little Susan of Woolloomooloo. When I drove me conveyance from out Wynyard-square, At the corner my Susan was sure to be there; And often she’d bring an acquaintance or two To have a ride gratis to Woolloomooloo. When I asked her to wed me, she said, “You be blowd, There’s another chap driving upon this ere road; He’s got lots of money, could buy and sell you, And we’re going to be mar-ri-ed at Woolloomooloo. Since she has been wed I have gone quite to grief At the soup-kitchen now I apply for relief; My licence is cancelled, they wouldn’t renew, All through pretty Susan of Woolloomooloo. Source: COLONIAL SOCIETY MAGAZINE Jan 21st 1868 Air: Pretty Polly Perkins |
| THE BREWER’S GLEE There is little doubt that the early colonies were places fueled with excessive alcohol consumption and, by all reports, some of the local ale offered at the taverns, as made from very dubious ingredients. This song, published in Melbourne is chock full of technical names from the brewing art. ‘Success to chemistry, and to the art of brewing beer’. Come all ye wealthy brewers that make colonial ale Let us mix the concoction that has such a ready sale; Come hither with your drugs; hops and barley are too dear, And we’ll mix the swipers up a dose of pure colonial beer. Oh! the brewing of the beer, Oh! The brewing of the beer Success to the chemistry, And the art of brewing beer, First fill the vat with water, put some molasses in, With vitriol and opium we may just as well begin; Put in some camomile, it’s a wholesome thing I hear And may counteract the bacco that we’ll now put in the beer. Put in some alum, salt and ginger, now to make it nice, And to pleasure the poor devils here’s some grains of paradise; And don’t spare the nux vomica, tho’ strychnine is dear But we must use it to give a hoppy flavour to the beer. Here is coculus indcius to make their heads go round, Here’s quassia and here’s multum too – don’t be nice to a pound! Put nutgalls in to colour it, and potash too to clear; And to hinder it from scouring put some jalap in the beer. let the farmer feed his cattle, and his poultry and his grain, We do not want his barley while we’ve fox-glove and henbane; Give us copperas, and wormwood, and hartshorn, and don’t fear That lushingtons need never go without colonial beer. Source: SAM SLICK MAGAZINE OCT 1879 Tune: When the Kye Comes Home |
| THE TRAMP I collected a version of The Tramp from Cyril Duncan in 1973. (refer Australian Folklore Unit, this site under Duncan). It is interesting to compare both versions and see how Cyril’s has been influenced by oral transmission. How many men there are who ride in fortune’s car, Who bar and bolt the door against the poor, It’s because they have lots of gold, and their hearts are very cold; You study it I’m sure you’ll find it true, Then speaking of the race, where they tramped from place to place, There’s many of these men from top to toe, So if they be in needy circumstances, then they need – And remember that a tramp has to live. Chorus If ever you meet a tramp, who bears misfortunes stamp If he’s worthy of your help then freely give; Render to him a hearty grip, wish him luck upon his trip, And remember that the poor tramp has to live I once did know a tramp, whom people called a scamp, And set the dogs on him lest he might steal. Ah, but as he turned away, I saw him kneel and pray. I know that God above heard his appeal. Now little do they know, how he tramped through ice and snow, That once he was happy as could be, Till misfortunes cruel dart came and pierced his heart, And stole from him his hope and everything. I heard a tramp relate, the sad story of his fate, And now he was an outcast shunned by all, He’d led a happy life – had a living child and wife; But, alas, like him, the woman had to fall, For she proved young and frail, there’s no need to tell the tale. Which drove his manly heart to sad despair, He left his wife and child, and never since has smiled, And now sadly tramps from town to town. Source:SILVER SONGSTER 1905 Tune: Fashionable Fred |
| I’VE HEARD THE PRAISE OF ROSY WINE I’ve heard the praise of rosy wine, In dulcet measure sung; And oft with wild and loud applause, The festive hall has rung. Let drunkards wake their noisy harps, And Bacchus’ praises sing – By far the sweetest drink for me Is water from the spring Is water from the spring Is water from the spring By far the sweetest drink for me Is water from the spring Whenever I wander from my home How distant, far or wide, I fear no danger on my way, While temperance is my guide; While here my course I fearless steer, Secure beneath her wing; And health and happiness I enjoy, By water from the spring. She shelters me from all the ills The drunkard knows and feels; She gives me health and happiness, And sorrow often heals; Along the thorny path of life, Oft-sweet repose she’ll bring – Like infant’s sleep – as sweet and pure As water from the spring. Source: DSM178/A ALLIANCE TEMPERANCE MELODIST The Temperance Societies and Bands of Hope of Australia. Sydney. 1880s Smith & Gardiner Small songbook. Hard cover. Tune: Rose of Allandale |
| AUSTRALIA’S HOPE God bless our youthful band; Oh, may we firmly stand True to our pledge. May we to liberty, Truth, love and charity, Evermore faithful to be, From youth to age. While for the drunkard’s weel, We work with constant zeal, Our labours bless. And we thine aid invoke, To save all little folk From the poor drunkard’s yoke, And deep distress. May young Australians stand, A noble temperance band, A joy to see; And may our cause extend, Until all nations blend – And one great shout ascend, – The world is free. Source: DSM178/A ALLIANCE TEMERANCE MELODIST The Temperance Societies and Bands of Hope of Australia. Sydney. 1880s Smith & Gardiner Small songbook. Hard cover. Tune: God Save The Queen |
| Temperance Ditty See the havoc drink is working Everywhere the danger lurking Shout your duty never shirking Alcohol shall fail. Temperance Society Melb 1870 composed by John Vale |
| BAND OF HOPE GAZETTE and GOOD TEMPLARS ADVOCATE States that in the Gov Gazette the number of licenses issued for 1875-76, we find that there are 2325 public houses in the colony (NSW). Sydney district, as may be expected, contains by far the largest number, viz, 625, or one fourth of the whole number. Which such a number of ‘hells on earth’, need we wonder at the prevalence of crime and misery in the land? Lodge 31 Murrurundi NSW 1875 onwards Handwritten and illustrated |
| THE DAY WE STRUCK QUIRINDI Oh, the day we struck Quirindi It was very wet and windy And we looked just like three stiffened water rats; Poor little Tommy Kelly Wished himself at home id Nelly And the other Tommy sighed for Doughboy Flats We had no change of raiment, And couldn’t get no clothes for payment, As we started to erect our canvas camp; But says little Tommy Kelly, “A good job we ain’t of jelly or we’d melt like salt or sugar with the damp”’ Just then two bullock teams drew up (We knew the drivers well) One was Joey Robbins and the other Tommy Bell They lent us some dry clothing; And then we lit a fire And with junk, tea and damper Our spirits rose much higher. (You ought to be crowned poet laureate with a prickly pear and a Bathurst Burr) Source: Sung by the Page River Singers Vol 1 no 3 BAND OF HOPE GAZETTE and GOOD TEMPLARS ADVOCATE |
| REGULATIONS FOR COCKIES Rule 1. No cocky shall speak disrespectfully of the AWU, The Labor party, Andrew Fisher, the cook, the shearers or the shed hands Rule 2. All cockies before coming on to the board shall have their whiskers trimmed, as the shearers consider that some cockies whiskers are as dangerous as barb-wire entanglements. Rule 3. In the advent of a shearer or shed hand asking a cocky for tobacco or matches, the cocky shall instantly produce same and shall stand in a respectful attitude till the said shearer or shed hand shall have filled or lit his pipe. Rule 4. The cocky shall not stand in front of a shearer or shed hand for more than five minutes. Rule 5. All cockies are expected to treat shearers and shed hands to whiskey Rule 6. Cockies shall not (under any circumstance) talk about the land tax, scarcity of labour, immigration, or the country being ruined. Rule 7. The cocky must not assume any superior airs and he shall not call himslef the ‘backbone of the country’ Rule 8. In the vent of a shearer requiring a drink of tea, his comb and cutter box, his pipe filled, or nay other service whatever, the cocky shall spring off the ball of his foot and do the service at once. Source: From Australasian Post 1957. It is said that this notice was pasted on many shearing board walls. |
| TEMPERANCE Two women sat at the washing tub For many hours had stood Till one unto the other said I’d like some beer I would No beer for me the other cried And you’ll agree with me The beer is nowhere once you taste The Hammodova tea Source: 1890s advertisement |
| Prince Albert’s Fashion Prince Albert’s ain’t in fashion now The shearers all wear socks An’ runs accounts for underwear An’ banks their beans an’ rocks They never bust or blue their cheques At shanties on the track But then grog ain’t what it was When I first went out back (Fragment) Ironbark. Anon circa 1890s |
| XMAS DAY IN THE MADHOUSE It was Xmas Day in the madhouse The looniest day of the year The idiots wriggled and gurgled and giggled Pursing their crazy career Then into there midst came a stranger The warden said: Joe meet the bunch He grunted a greeting and stood idly eating Taxation returns for his lunch They plied him with dozens of questions He shook his delirious head His eyes that were rheumy went tearful and gloomy He choked back a sob and he said: I once was a placid young fellow Clear-headed and matter of fact Till I began reading that puzzling, misleading irrational licensing act I tried to make sense of its clauses The strain was too much for my brain These tangled restrictions and queer contradictions Have sent me completely insane I don’t ask for presents at Christmas I only seek mental control Of why don’t those fakirs, those liquor law makers, Explain what the blazes they mean The lunatics doubled with laughter Gave one simultaneous jeer They nudged one another and said Listen brother We made ’em and that’s why we’re here. Source: COLONIAL SOCIETY Anon. From Cyril Pearl Beer Glorious Beer 1968 |
| LOAFERS CLUB Hurrah for a lazy life Hurrah for nothing to do Hurrah for the ninnies who give me bread And find me baccy too The world is full of fools Industrious as a bee But I will do nothing and do it well And that’s enough for me Loaf, Loaf, Loaf, In the winter or the summer bright And loaf, loaf, loaf, From Sunday to Saturday night Smoke tucker and sleep Sleep tucker and smoke So long as I have those I’ll take very good care Not to work a single stroke Source:From Town & Country Journal. 1873 Tune: Down In The Strand |
| WINK AT ME WITH THINE EYES Wink at me only with thine eyes And I will wink with mine Blow me a kiss but through thy veil And I will not repine I sent a note the other day My note the butcher bore Oh, if that note touch’d any chord Some token I implore Heed not thy mistresses awful frown The sermons scarce begun For winking haeps of time there’ll be Ere this discovery is done Wink at me only with thine eyes And I will wink with mine Medusa like, thy mistress glares And I for-see a shine. Source:Aust Journal. 1869 Tune: Drink to me only with thine eyes |
| The Alliance Temperance Melodist The Temperance Societies and Bands of Hope of Australia Pub Sydney Smith & Gardiner Hardcover/songster size and design. Undated circa 1880 The songs, mostly original, are set to popular tunes such as Roast Beef of Old England, Long, Long Ago; The Campbell’s are coming. Beer Glorious Beer If you drink sprints you’ll never feel queer Drink all the morning, drink all the night As there’s nothing to suffer You can always get tight. Beer o Beer I do love thee In thee I place my trust I’d rather go to bed in hunger Than go to bed in thirst. Dsm/178/A |
| Beer Glorious Beer If you drink sprints you’ll never feel queer Drink all the morning, drink all the night As there’s nothing to suffer You can always get tight. Beer o Beer I do love thee In thee I place my trust I’d rather go to bed in hunger Than go to bed in thirst. |
| God Save The Queen Happy & glorious 3 & a half pints amongst four of us Heaven send no more of us Good Save The Queen Aust Jnl Sept 8/1886 |
| Parody on Beggar’s Opera Though the odd noses in vogue Each nose is turned up at its brother Broad and blunt they call platter and pug And thus take snuff at each other The short calls the long nose a snout The long calls the short nose a snub The bottle nose being so stout Thinks every sharp one a scrub Aust Jln. |
| D’ye Ken? D’ ye ken how sherry and ginger agree With a dash of rum 35 O.P. D’ye ken how its when you mix all three That yer eyes they are weak in the morningÖ. Tune: D’ ye ken John Peel? From goldrush times and said to have many verses R. Ridley. |
| Where The Cooler Bars Grow (Parody) Lenny Lower Wrap me up in my stockwhip and blanket And bury me deep down below Where the farm implement salesmen won’t molest me In the place where the cooler bars grow. |
| REASONS FOR DRINKING One drinks because he’s very hot, As we are often told. Another can’t refuse a pot, Because he’s very cold. A third will drink because he’s wet, Its benefits to try; A fourth must sure a tankard get Because he’s very dry Another must a bargain make, Which with a glass he’s strike; While all, in fact, the liquor take, Because it’s what they like. Source: German Air |
| SHALL E’ER COLD WATER BE FORGOT? Shall e’er cold water be forgot, When we sit down to dine? Oh, no, my friends, for it is not, Pour’d out by hands divine, my friends, Pour’d out by hands divine! From springs and wells it gushes forth, Pour’d out by hands divine. To beauty’s cheek (though strange it seems, ‘Tis not more strange than true) Cold water, tho’ itself so pale, Imparts the rosiest hue. Imparts the rosiest hue, my frre4iends, Imparts the rosiest hue Yes, beauty in a water pail, Doth find her rosiest hue. Cold water, too (though wonderful ‘Tis not less true again) The weakest of all earthly drinks, Doth make the strongest men, Doth make the strongest men. Doth make the strongest men, my friends, Doth make the strongest men; Then let us take the sweetest drink, And grow the strongest men. So shall the boys, like oaks, be strong? The girls, like lilies, fair. The girls, like lilies fair, my friends, The girls, like lilies fair; The boys shall grow like sturdy oaks, The girls, like lilies fair. Tune: Auld Lang Syme |
| THE HALLELUJAH BAND I assume this song was popular as a satirical dig at the 1880s and 1890s anti drink movement that spawned The Band of Hope and many other teetotaller groups. This one celebrates booze. I was an artful dodger once, but now you’ll understand, I’m a most exalted member of the Hallelujah Band, Our doings are notorious, and here I must remark, We’ve lately held a picnic in the grounds of Royal Park; It was a glorious morning and we made a jolly start, Like angels going to Dixie in a covered carrier’s cart, So brotherly and sisterly, of friends about a score, And such a lot of loving lambs you never saw before. Then you may go to Bungaree, Bendigo, or Ballarat, Castlemaine, Warnambool, or search through the land, But if you want a spree, that a saint can only see, You must join a jolly party in the Nunawading Band. We reached the park at two pm and wandering we went, On where to find a quiet spot where we could sit unseen, To smoke a pipe, to sing a song, or dance upon the green; We introduced the eatables, the bottled stout, and beer, With sundry drops of something short, our sinking souls to cheer, When sister Sarah Springbottom begged that brother Jim, Would sing her Champagne Charlie, and she would sign a hymn. Now when we’d done with Dr Watts we took a urn at Bass, And drank success to temperance in many a flowing glass, We pledged each other manfully in wines of every sort, We satisfied the inner man, then cleared the crumbs away, We danced and sung, declaring we had spent a happy day, Then had a game of kiss in the ring, and kissed each other’s wives, And vowed it was the jolliest day we’d spent in all our lives. SOURCE: Australian Melodist Songster |
| JONES’S ALE Simon McDonald sang a version of this song for Norm O’Connor and Mary-Jean Officer in the 1950s. Great song and, once again, a surprising find. This printed version offers an additional verse telling of a sailor who joined the jovial crew. There were four jovial fellows Came o’er the hills together, Came o’er the hills together, To join this jovial crew. They sat themselves down upon the ground And each one swore he’d spend a pound, And then they’d drink good ale around, While Jones’s ale was new, my boys, While Jones’s ale was new. Chorus They called for more pints, and pots, and more glasses, And then they all got drunk as asses, And, oh! What a lark they had with the lasses, While Jones’s ale was new, my boys, While Jones’s ale was new. The first that came was a mason, With hammer and chisel to face them, With hammer and chisel to face them, To join this jovial crew. He threw his old mallet against the wall, And swore that chapels and churches might fall, And then there’d be work for masons all, While Jones’s ale was new, my boys, While Jones’s ale was new. The next that came in was a barber, Who swore he came from Scarboro’, Whop swore he came from Scarboro’, To join this jovial crew. He threw his old razor against the wall, And wished that old maids might shave and all, And then there’d be work for barbers all, While Jones’s ale was new, my boys, While Jones’s ale was new. The next that came inw as a sailor, With marlin-spike and lever, With marlin-spike and lever, To join this jovial crew. He told the old landlord straight to his face That the chimney corner was his place, And there he would sit till black in the face, While Jones’s ale was new, my boys, While Jones’s ale was new. The next that came inw as a tinker, Good lor! He was no drinker, Good lor! He was no drinker, To join this jovial crew. Have you any old pots or kettles to settle, For my rivets are made of the best of metal; Good lor! How his hammer and tongs did rattle, While Jones’s ale was new, my boys, While Jones’s ale was new. SOURCE: Australian Melodist Songster |
| THE PARSON AND THE CLERK I was very surprised to find this song in a songster. It had been rarely recorded in Britain and the only time it surfaced here was when I taped the repertoire of Cyril Duncan in 1973. You can compare Cyril’s oral tradition version by going to the Australian Folklore Unit file of his repertoire. I found some of Cyril’s interpretations very amusing and interesting. He had the song from his bullock-driver father. A parson preached to his flock, one day, On the sins of the human race And the clerk a loud “Amen!” did say With the solemnest tone and face But that pious clerk on the quiet, though, Would venture a bit of remark ‘All sin is sweet’ said the parson; ‘Then I’m for sin’, said the clerk, ‘Amen’ Yes, sin for me,” said the clerk “Amen!” “Oh! never covert thy neighbour’s goods,” So the parson said, “nor his maid, For to rob a man of that that’s his, Why a fellow should be afraid; And, oh, covet ye not, thou man of sin, I pray you this matter to mark, Thy neighbour’s wife,” said the parson “The maid for me,” said the clerk. “Amen The slavey for me,” said the clerk, “Amen” “As Christian men,” said the parson, “You Should ever be humble and meek, And you should not strike a sinful man, When he landeth you one on the cheek; Nay turn my friends, to that erring one, Yea, turn to that sinner so dark, The other cheek,” said the parson, “I’d break his nose.” said the clerk, “Amen” Land him at once,” said the clerk. “Amen” Oh, never sigh for that dross called gold, For it’s blessed is the man who is poor; You never should seek the fishes, my friend, And should cast ye the loaves from the door, Oh! I grieve to think it’s my fate to drive, A carriage and pair in the park, With a thousand a year,” said the parson. “Then give it to me,” said the clerk, “Amen” No pride about me,” said the clerk. “Amen” “The girls are awfully frivolous,” The parson he said with a groan, And the boys, too, of the Sunday school, Won’t let the young hussies alone; I’ve watched them grin behind their books, And I’ve seen those boys for a lark “Kissing the girls,” said the parson, “I’ve dome it myself,” said the clerk, “Amen” They’re fond of it, too,” said the clerk. “Amen” And now my sermon, my friends, is done, I bid you go work and pray, Don’t do as your parson does, But do as your parsons say; But ere you depart your worldly cares, I’ll venture this matter to remark; “Never drink,” said the parson, “I’m awfully dry,” said the clerk, “Amen I’m off to the pub,” said the clerk. Amen! SOURCE: Australian Melodist Songster |
| EIGHTEEN PENCE Here is another surprising song. The song has been collected in Australia and I have been singing it for over twenty years having learnt it from Ron Edward’s Overlander Songster. It is sheer nonsense and terrific to sing. The words differ from the traditional versions. I took my love to a hall one night—it was a social hop,’ We stayed until the dance was o’er, till the music it did stop, And then we went to a restaurant—the finest in the street. She said she wasn’t hungry, but this is what she ate; A lobster claw, a beefsteak raw, Some pickle and some toast, Apple sars, asparagus, Some corn’d beef and Lorne roast, Irish stew, trotters too— Her appetite was immense! When she holler’d for pie I thought I’d die For I had but Eighteen Pence. You bet I wasn’t hungry—I didn’t care to eat— Expecting every moment to be thrown out in the street, She said she wasn’t thirsty, but she had an awful tank, For after eating all those things, this is what she drank; A whisky skin, a glass of gin— She made me shake with fear— Some ginger pop, rum on top, And a great big glass of beer; A gin cocktail, a glass of ale— She ought to have had more sense; When she called for more I fell on the floor For I bad but Eighteen Pence. She ate and drank two hours or more— I wished that I was dead; Or I wished I could fall through the floor— I began to swim in the head. She said she’d bring her family round some day and have some fun. I gave the man the Eighteen Pence, and this is what he done: Ha broke my nose, he tore my clothes, He hit me in the jaw ; He gave me a prize of a pair of black eyes, And with me wiped the floor ; He caught me where my pants hung loose And threw me over the fence. Take my advice, don’t try it twice If you have but Eighteen Pence. SOURCE: Australian Melodist Songster |
A GOOD SUPPLY OF WEED
Life in the Australian bush of the nineteenth century was made more tolerable by the potent trio of tea, grog and tobacco: the tea was strong, dark and sweet, the grog usually second-rate gin, rum or worse, and the tobacco heavily aromatic and, no doubt, deadly. All three were consumed in unbelievable quantities and became significant contributors to our folklore.
Tobacco arrived with the first fleet in 1788, and nearly every ship that arrived here for the following one hundred years. We know of the rum currency period but tobacco was also a much-traded commodity as the military and colonists emulated British society’s passion for the peculiar habit introduced a century before by Sir Walter Raleigh. Colonial paintings and drawings show the popularity of smoking with the majority of colonialists and, in some instances, convicts, seen smoking pipes. There is little doubt tobacco was used to bride convicts and there is evidence that it was used to ‘tame’ Aborigines who soon developed a taste for the exotic habit.
In the nineteenth century most tobacco was sold in small, dark, moist lumps known as plugs and smoked in clay pipes. There was an elaborate ceremony associated with the preparation of the pipe with the smoker using a knife to slice the tobacco then rolling it in the palm of their hand and then, finally, separating the strands in preparation for the pipe.
The pipes were usually made of clay with the bowl section called a cutty. Here’s what F. Fowler, a visitor to Sydney in 1859, wrote:
“The ‘cutty’ is of all shapes, sizes and shades. Some are Negro heads, set with rows of very white teeth – some are mermaids, showing their more presentable halves up the front of the bowls, and stowing away their weedy fundaments under the items. Some are Turkish caps – some are Russian skulls. Some are Houris, some are expressions of the French, some are Margaret Catchpoles. Some are as small as my lady’s thimble – others as large as an old Chelsea teacup. Everybody has one, from the little pinafored schoolboy to the old veteran who came out with the second batch of convicts. A cutty-bowl, like a Creole’s eye, is most prized when blackest. Tobacco, I should add here, is seldom sold in a cut form, each man carries a cake about with him, like a card case; each boy has his stick of Cavendish, like so much candy. The cigars usually smoked are manilas, which are as cheap and good as can be met with in any part of the world. Lola Montez, during her Australian tour, spoke well of them. What stronger puff could they have than hers?”
Margaret Catchpole was a Suffolk horse-thief and goal-breaker transported to Australia in 1801 where she led an industrious life, gained a pardon and became a noted midwife and farmer. One assumes she smoked a style of pipe that carried her name into history, or at least into the goldrush era. The mention of femme fatale, Lola Montez, is interesting as her appearance on the Ballarat diggings proved nothing short of sensational with near riots breaking out as miners scrambled to see the exotic beauty. The fact she was often seen smoking a cigar was nothing short of scandalous.
Whilst there were some long-stemmed wooden pipes, mostly Dutch or English, the average smoker used a short-stemmed clay pipe because they were inexpensive and easier to obtain. These pipes only lasted a short while, two or three weeks for a solid smoker, and then crumbled. Long stemmed clay pipes were totally useless as they broke too easily.
If there were no pipes the tobacco was chewed; a most unsavoury habit. When gold petered out and rural enterprise took over many station-holders kept a supply of pipes for their workers.
The most successful distributor of tobacco products was the Sydney firm of Dixson and Sons, who imported primarily from America. One of the problems of plug tobacco was that it would dry out in the Australian bush and quickly lose its characteristic sweetness and in the early 1880’s Dixson’s introduced hermetically sealed tins. These tins were branded with a small tin disc pressed into the tobacco plug. ‘Yankee Doodle’ was one of the most popular brands.
The rituals of cutting tobacco and smoking entered our folklore. Often the bushman used the same knife to cut his tobacco as he would his evening meal of mutton. Every smoker kept his ‘makings’ in a leather pouch and it was considered bad luck to refuse a man who asked to borrow the ‘makings’. Joseph Furphy, in his wonderful novel, ‘Such Is Life’, points to the importance of the bushman’s knife:
‘I hate that beggar, I wouldn’t lend him my knife to cut up a pipe of tobacco, not if his tongue was sticking out as long as your arm.”
In 1973 I was recording some bush songs from Mr Rad Dawson, an 82 year old retired prosector and stockman, of Forrester’s Beach, NSW, when he gave me this account of a bushman’s camp:
“I remember my brother and I were coming in from the west and just about midday we struck two old rabbiters. They were two of the dirtiest men I had ever seen. Old straggly beards and there were rabbit skins and carcasses and crows in what was the dirtiest camp I’d ever seen. They only had a 6×8 tent, just room for a bunk on each side. We asked whether we could boil our billy on their fire. Oh, they were only to pleased and they started to chat to us. One old cove was looking for his clay pipe when he comes out of the tent muttering, “Hey! Jim, did you see my old doodee anywhere? That’s a bushman’s name for a pipe. Without looking up the other rabbiter says, “Yeah, she’s in on the pianner”. After a while we’re all squatting by the fire discussing a certain track we had planned to take. “I wouldn’t take that track,” Jim offered “they’ve done nothing to that track since Hadam was in the Hark.” At this the other rabbiter nudged us and whispered, “Hadam was never in the Hark.”
Lighting your pipe was usually a trial. In the early days of the colony pipes had to be lit from the open fire, a risky business for the wigged gentry! The introduction of wax matches in the 1850s probably saved many a miner from going up in flames and then, in the late 1860s, safety matches were introduced. These matches became extremely important to bush life and branded with bush symbols like Platypus Brand, Australia Brand (made in Japan) and The Dingo (made in Norway). The later introduction of rolling rice paper, sold with a distinctive glue strip, heralded the arrival of the cigarette. Converted and desperate roll-your-own smokers were known to tear pages of The Bulletin for a makeshift smoke when the Tally-ho or Boomerang rollers were unavailable!
Dixson’s imported an American cigarette rolling machine around 1880 but smokers deemed the tailor-made cigarettes too mild and too expensive. One group of cityslickers did embrace the new fashion: the larrikins of Sydney and Melbourne, ever considerate of their street-credibility image, considered a fag hanging out of the mouth as an important statement of urban fashion.
Most rural workers smoked at night as if a well-earned respite from hard yakka. In reality it was difficult to smoke a pipe while undertaking manual labour. In more organised workplaces like offices and shops smoking was frowned upon or banned during working hours. It was seen as a waste of work time and the smell objectionable. Eventually, as work timetables became more uniform, a mid morning and afternoon break was introduced so as to allow smoking and a cup of tea. This became known as ‘smoke-oh’.
The mythical image of the bushman, be it rowdy miners in a tent shanty, shearers yarning around the men’s hut, drovers or bullockies settled around an open campfire or the lone swaggie, mug of tea in hand all look more Australian with a pipe or smoke hanging out of their mouths. The squattocracy also shared this image and one suspects that typical Australian wide verandah was a very suitable place for an evening pipe and brandy. Of course, no one gave a minute’s thought to the ill effects of smoking. The over-riding aspect of smoking was that it was a simple pleasure that could be enjoyed by all and, most importantly, it was seen as an opportunity to show mateship. The sharing of a smoke was synonymous with our view of the mythical bush character who held little belief in the class system, and believed just about anything could be sorted out with a friendly yarn.
Smoking was definitely seen as part of the bushman’s image and this was also reinforced in traditional song and poetry.
One of the most popular bush songs was ‘Four Little Johnny Cakes’ which was later included in the New Theatre production ‘Reedy River’. One verse goes:
I have a little book and some papers for to read,
Plenty of matches and a good supply of weed,
I envy not a squatter, as at my fire I sit,
With a paper in my hand and my old clay a-lit.
Banjo Paterson, pipe in mouth, signified the continuation of the old school.
Around 1860 Robert Stewart, a bush worker and poet, penned ‘The Man With The Concertina’ including:
I light my pipe and puff a cloud,
You’d think I was a steamer,
Then Finnegan’s Wake I finger out
Upon my concertina.
It was between the two world wars that cigarette smoking really took off in a cloud of smoke. There were role models too. The cartoon strip image of Alex Gurney’s wartime duo Bluey and Curley always saw the two mates with fag ends hanging out of their mouths.
Bluey & Curley – part of our folklore and they always had a fag hanging out of their mouths.
Country music legend Tex Morton posed for publicity shots as he rolled his cigarette in one hand.
Hollywood had already made smoking sexy and hardly a movie star was seen without a cigarette. Classic movies show entwined lovers, surrounded by a cloud of smoke, ready for the embrace – it must have been like kissing an ashtray. A new Australian phenomenon – the advertising billboard – gave a visual presence to what radio listeners had already heard: smoking was fashionable, smoking was smart and smoking made you irresistible to the opposite sex.
The long-legged, sexy Ardeth girl and the sophisticated Craven-A model looked down on us as we drove our Vanguards and Austins across town. Women had also taken up the smoking habit: if Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Lamour and Rita Haywood could smoke – so could they!
Writers and academics also set the standard and no professor was worth his salt unless he had a pipe.
The good Professor Murdoch was hardly seen without his beloved pipe.
Walter Murdoch, academic and essayist summed it up as follows:
“To be without a pipe in your jowl is to be the prey of a thousand petty distractions. The unsolved problem – of the differential calculus, or the butcher’s bill – is knocking at the door, and will be heard. Religion and patriotism, honour and duty and love, each is blowing its importunate bugle-call to your conscience. You must reform the world; or you must reform your neighbour; or, at the very least, you must dine. And so, poor soul, you are harried hither and thither, and have no rest. But put a pipe between your lips, and lo! At a whiff you pass to where, beyond these voices there is peace.”
West Australia’s Murdoch University’s website still carries a profile of its pipe-smoking namesake.
Writer, Randolph Bedford, in his ‘Naught to Thirty-One’, published in1944, reminiscences:
“As a child I recited these words in the old Temperance Hall in Sydney, now a picture theatre:
“I’ll never smoke tobacco,
It is a filthy weed –
I’ll never put it in my mouth,”
Said little Bobby Reed
“For there is idle jerry Jones,
As lazy as a pig.
Who smoked a clay pipe all day long,
And thought it made him big.”
God be merciful to me! Since then I have become a chain smoker; the first pipe of the day I smoke immediately after breakfast, and the last just before sleeping. In between there is an ounce of tobacco.”
Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have ‘brought smoking to the civilized world’, but he in no sense invented it. Raleigh, one time darling of the English Court started more than one trend. When due to be beheaded he was granted one last request – a smoke before the axe fell.
Smoking is obviously an offshoot of man’s early smoke superstitions, and later incense burning, to ward off evil spirits. We have inherited a vast catalogue of associated superstitions, many still circulated today. It is considered unlucky to offer a broken cigarette or to light your cigarette from another. It is a sign of trouble if a cigarette burns unevenly down one side. Taking the third light from the same match is also a sign of bad luck. Superstitions have also become urban myths and you might have heard the story about the women who threw inflammable liquid down the toilet and her husband, used to smoking a fag on the loo, blew himself to Kingdom Come when he dropped the fag end in the bowl. Another, introduced when menthol cigarettes hit the market, reported that all menthol cigarettes contained fiberglass. It wasn’t true but cigarettes do contain literally hundreds of additives and chemical falvourants, so what the hell!
We now know a lot more about smoking and health and also how advertising and spin doctors manipulate us. We are supposed to learn from history. Some people never learn.
match seller
Rita Hayworth
Tex Morton
Lambing Down
Duke Tritton sings ‘The Gooseneck Spurs’. Meredith Collection NLA. This is a classic lambing down song where the besozzled bushman discovers all his personal belongings, including his horse, bridle and dog, have ‘jumped the bar’ – in other words, have gone to pay for his endless drinking spree. It was a familiar tale of woe. As Duke says in his introduction to this live concert recordings, he called ihe song ‘The Gooseneck Spurs’ because that’s all he was wearing by the end of the drinking session.
Hard drinking often fuelled the hard-working Australian bushmen of our pioneering era. In remote communities, and there were many, the local shanty or pub was the central meeting, eating and drinking place. The shanties, usually selling very inferior grog, were illegal but flourished on the belief they were better than nothing. The hotels or pubs, a step up from the shanty, usually offering accommodation and meals, and sometimes entertainment, were also seen as clearing houses for information and gossip: unofficial bush telegraph depots. The favoured alcohol in the shanties was a dubious mix of cheap spirits and slops, while the hotels mainly served up Dutch Gin and Jamaican Rum. Ale was also popular but, considering the extreme Australian heat, the brew did not become widely popular until the introduction of cooling systems.
Two of the more expressive terms for outback drinking dens were poison shops and lambing down shops.
To lamb down meant ‘to spend money (on alcohol), on a spree, or lavishly’ (Sidney J. Baker: ‘The Australian Language’). Unfortunately many shanty operators saw this as a challenge: to pry as much money out of their enthusiastic customers as possible, in the shortest possible time.
One of the reasons for the success of the lambing down shops and their lambing down operators was the difficulty of available and reliable transport to larger towns and the cities. The introduction of railways networks, particularly in the 1970s, solved much of the problem, enabling the bush workers to actually travel distance without the temptation of sly-grog shanties. Before rail it was a much different scenario as shearers, drovers and other bush workers were paid off with a single cheque or gold coins, sometimes representing a year’s wages, or, at the least, a few month’s hard yakka, and the temptations were many. Many the bushman passed these savings over the bar of a shanty and proceeded to drink it away. This pattern had been etched years earlier on the goldfields where men ‘struck it rich’ only to see their nuggets disappear in shanty tents. Those that made it to the big towns usually lost it to horse racing and cadgers.
Hardened drinkers, and there were lots of them in such a male-dominated society, would tell the barman to inform them when the money had covered three days, or a week, or, sadly, when it had run out. These men would drink for weeks and then, blind drunk, would be told their ‘cheque had cut out’. Some establishments had what was known as a ‘dead house’, a separate room or shed at the back of the building, where the unfortunates would be thrown to ‘drink it off’.
A day later, still woozy from the alcohol, the men would stagger off to return to the next season of work.
Drunks were known as being ‘shickered’, ‘stonkered’, ‘full as a tick’ or ‘full as a goog’ (googy egg), ‘drunk as a skunk’ or, in good 20th century Aussie talk, ‘as pissed as a fart’.
If they had wisely decided on a three-day spree and had a partly honest operator (or a few powerful muscles), they would get the balance of their cheque and move on, often to another drinking establishment.
To have one’s horse and bridle ‘jump the bar’ was another old expression, referring to the boozer who, in his stupor, agrees to ‘sell’ the horse and trappings to the shanty keeper for more grog. Most such decisions were made in desperation and in an alcoholic state.
Crafty shanty operators also devised tricks to get the last penny out of their inebriated clientele. One trick, according to Clarrie Peters, who I recorded in 1974, was for the landlord to bake the cheque in the oven before handing it over – after a day or two’s hard riding the cheque would have disintegrated to dust.
Australians delighted in anointing certain drinks with names.
There was even a drink named for Lola Montez, the exotic dancer who toured here (with her Spider Dance) in the goldrush era. The ‘Lola Montez’ was made with rum, ginger, lemon and hot water.
There were other exotic drinks. The ‘Diamantina Cocktail’ must have packed a punch: a pint of condensed milk, a pint of Bundaberg rum and a well-beaten emu egg. There was also the (joke) ‘Normanton cocktail’: a gin and two blankets.
Duke Tritton, the bush singer and author of ‘Time Means Tucker’, wrote an extremely funny and sadly graphic song, in 1905, (and one suspects there were some home truths in the tale) that he called ‘The Gooseneck Spurs’.
GOOSENECK SPURS
I’ve been in lots of trouble, I’ve been in tons of strife,
But the fix I was in at the Shingle Hut was the toughest of my life.
I’d dumped a mob of weaners at a place called leaning Gum,
I sang a ditty to my horse, ‘Oh, Sydney here I come.’
But I pulled up at the Shingle Hut, a little wayside pub;
Tired of mutton and damper, I wanted some decent grub,
The barmaid was a buxom lass, I thought her very nice –
You wouldn’t think, to look at her, but her heart was made of ice.
I handed her my hard-earned cheque, it was over fifty quid,
There was a quick gleam in her eye, but her thoughts she quickly hid.
She smiled at me so sweetly and said, “It’s getting late’;
I cannot cash your cheque today, now would you care to wait?
My husband won’t be home tonight, so stay you really must,
I’d feel much safer with you here, for you’re a man I’d trust.”
Then away went all my chances of seeing Sydney town,
For that barmaid was a trimmer at lambing fellows down.
I had one drink, or maybe two, I’m sure it was no more,
And I came to in the ‘dead house’, feeling sick and sore.
It was the barmaid woke me, with the toe of her little shoe.
“Get out!” she said, “you drunken mug, three days is enough for you.”
A big bloke stood behind her, a nasty looking brute;
I was too crook for brawling or I’d have jobbed the coot.
And the barmaid said, “Your cheque’s cut, you’d better make a shift;
Here is a bottle for the road, it is my parting gift.”
“All right,” I said, “I’ll get my horse, tonight I’ll travel far.”
“Oh no!” she laughed, “you can’t do that, your horse has jumped the bar.”
And so it had. My saddle too; likewise my swag and dog,
No doubt she had me corned like a possum in a log.
I wandered off into the scrub, I heard a dingo calling,
And soon I knew that I was lost and a heavy frost was falling.
I opened up the bottle and had a swig of rum,
It hit me like a hammer, my legs went weak and numb.
I knew that I had been stung again, my head went round and round;
I thought I saw the barmaid before I hit the ground.
And I awoke ‘neath a barbed-wire fence in a patch of Bathurst burrs,
With nothing to cover my freezing hide but a pair of gooseneck spurs.
Where did the term ‘lambing down’ originate and is it purely Australian? The term does appear to be Australian-born. Ralph Boldrewood used it in ‘The Crooked Stick’ (1895) describing it as a ‘rather old-fashioned bush pleasantry”. Marcus Clarke used it in ‘Colonial City’ in 1869 “to lamb down – that is, to make drunk and incapable – (suggesting) – of course originating with some shepherd.” G.H. Gibson (‘Ironbark’) also used it in a poem published in ‘Southerly Busters ‘, 1878, “He got upon the spree/And publicans was awful cheats/For soon lamm’d down was he.” Joseph Furphy’s use in ‘Such Is Life’ (1903) probably sums it up: ‘The lambing down of two stalwart fencers by a pimply old shanty keeper.’
Nowadays it is the hotel poker machines that do the ‘lambing down’.
EXCESSIVE DRINKING
Pioneering Australians had a reputation for hard work and hard play and there are numerous songs, poems and yarns about excessive drining but none can come up to the story of the shearer, Bill Brink, who drank ‘acid with never a wink’.
There have been several versions of this comic song collected and one can imagine how the story would have made many the hardened drinker smile with recognition. One is reminded of the old yarn where the swag carrier, with a face as dry as the One Man Plain, sides up to a drover and says,
“Could you spare a traveller a drop of beer?”
The drover, not being too flash with cash, pushes the glass in the stranger’s direction and nods. Sure enough the swaggie tilts the glass and drinks it all down in one gulp.
“Struth!” said the drover, “I thought you only wanted a drop!”
“Yes,” responded the swaggie, “but it was the drop at the bottom!
BILLY BRINK
There once was a shearer by the name of Bill Brink,
A devil for work and a devil for drink,
He’d shear his two hundred a day without fear
And he’d drink without stopping two gallons of beer.
When the pub opened up he was very first in
Roaring for whisky and howling for gin,
Saying, “Jimmy, my boy, I’m dying of thirst,
Whatever you’ve got here just give to me first.”
Now Jimmy the barman who served him the rum
Hated the sight of old Billy the bum,
He came up too late, he came up too soon,
At morning, at evening, at night and at noon.
Now Jimmy the barman was cleaning the bar
With sulphuric acid locked up in a jar,
He poured him a measure into a small glass,
Saying, “After this drink you will surely say ‘Pass’.”‘
“Well,” says Billy to Jimmy, “the stuff it tastes fine.
She’s a new kind of liquor or whisky or wine.
Yes, that’s the stuff. Jimmy, I’m as strong as a Turk,
I’ll break all the records today at my work.”
Well, all that day long there was Jim at the bar,
Roaring and trembling with a terrible fear,
Too eager to argue, too anxious to fight,
For he pictured the corpse of old Bill in his sight.
But early next mom there was Bill as before,
Roaring and bawling and howling for more,
His eyeballs were singed and his whiskers deranged,
He had holes in his hide like a dog with the mange.
Said Billy to Jimmy, “She sure was fine stuff,
It made me feel well but I ain’t had enough.
It started me coughing, you know I’m no liar,
And every damn cough set my whiskers on fire.”
SOURCE
Anonymous. From the singing of Simon McDonald, Creswick, Victoria, and collected by Norm O’Connor and Mary-Jean Officer and included in Hugh Anderson’s book Time Out of Mind, 1974.
THE DEAD HOUSE
Nineteenth century bush workers, and that was the majority of our workforce up to around 1880, generally liked a drink. They worked hard and played harder. It was not uncommon for shearers or drovers in receipt of a fat cheque from a season’s work to knock it down in the first pub they found. Most had good intention of going to the ‘big smoke’, as they called the city, or heading straight to their loved ones at home but, far too often, they fell victim to their own thirst. Things changed once the railway linked the country but for a man on horseback, Cobb & Co. coach or ‘shank’s pony’, travel was a daunting prospect and something best considered after a few drinks. It wasn’t unusual for a man to hit a shanty pub and hand his hard-earned cheque to the landlord with instructions to “let me know when I’ve cut out three days”. After three days of non-stop boozing the man was typically thrown into a sobering-up room at the back of the establishment. This room was known as the ‘dead-house’. The local constabulary had a responsibility to look in on these hotels and to discourage drunken behavior. After sobering-up they ‘settled up’ for the remainder of their cheque or, more likely than not, returned to the bar for another round of excessive drinking. Many landlords, eager not to lose their catch, enticed the poor devil with a ‘few drinks for the road’. It was a vicious cycle.
In its pre-election pitch the current New South Wales government announced a plan to introduce sobering-up rooms for ‘drunken yobs’. Barry O’Farrell said the ‘centres, likely to be based in police stations, would give police an additional way of dealing with drunks’.
It didn’t work back then and skeptics are saying it won’t work now.
In the colonial era it was obligatory for designated hotels, especially large rural establishments, to maintain a room exclusively to hold dead bodies until the police determined the cause of death and where the body should be sent. These temporary morgues appear to be the origin of the boozer’s ‘dead-house’. Thousands of drunks were despatched to these mortuary rooms to sober up and I have heard stories of men waking from the dead to find real dead bodies lying next to them. Eventually proper public facilities were established for the dead however, by that time, in the late 19th century, the term ‘dead house’ had passed over to become the accepted term for the public house sobering-up room.
Oldtimers talked of commencing a heavy drinking spree as ‘to lamb down’ – no doubt inferring they were like lambs to the slaughter. It is probably no coincidence the shearing analogy entered our bush slanguage to describe such enthusiastic drinking. They also talked of being ‘lambed down’ which inferred that they had been taken advantage of by the landlord who encouraged their hard drinking and then took unfair if not criminal advantage to relieve the unfortunates of any remaining money.
An anonymous poem, simply titled ‘Lambing Down’ appeared in The Queenslander, 13 October 1894, and is typical of the songs and poems about the realisation that your cheque, often a year’s work, had jumped the bar. In this case the villain appeared to be the landlady who encouraged the poor devil by endless pouring of the bottle, joining in the shout and, when things fell flat, challenging the lushaholic to a gambling bet which, no doubt, always went in her favour.
I’m a broken-hearted shearer, I’m ashamed to show my face,
The way that I got lambed down is a sin and a disgrace;
I put a cheque together, and thought that it would do,
So I just slipped into Orange for to spend a week or two.
I thought I was no flat, so resolved to cut it fat;
I dressed myself up in my best, put a poultice round my hat;
I went to have a nobbler at a certain house in town,
Where the barmaid she was cautioned for to lamb a fellow down.
I would get up in the morning to have a glass of stout;
She cost me many a shilling, for she was in every shout.
She would toss me up at Yankee Grab, and keep me on the booze:
But somehow or the other I was always bound to lose.
My money getting short I resolved to know my fate;
I asked this pretty barmaid if she would be my mate,
When she said, ”Young man, on my feelings don’t encroach,
I’m a decent married woman, and my husband drives the coach.”
I had two-and-six in silver and half-a-bar of soap,
A box of Cockle’s pills and a pot of Holloway’s;
I thought to turn a farmer and grow pumpkins near the town,
But she squashed all my pumpkins when she had me lambed down.
I had two old shirts, but they were all in rags;
A pair of moleskin trousers and a hat without a crown.
This was my ten years’ gathering when clearing out of town;
But it’s nothing when you’re used to it to do a lambing down.
In 1973 I recorded the life story of a teamster named Clarrie Peters who told me about one particularly unsavory landlady who had her own method of lambing down innocent bush workers. She gladly accepted their season’s cheque and duly cut off the drink after three days, throwing the victim into the dead-house to sober up. When the poor man surfaced a day later, usually white as a ghost and with the shakes, she would hand him a cheque for the balance of his money. What he didn’t know was that she had baked the cheque in the oven. After riding a hundred miles or so the poor sod would look in his saddle bag to find nothing but dust. He’d been well and truly lambed down!
Legendary bushman and shearer, Duke Tritton, composed a song in 1905 about being lambed down in a ‘blood house’, a hotel noted for fist fights.
I had one drink or maybe two, I’m sure it was no more,
And I came to in the dead house, feeling sick and sore.
It was the barmaid woke me, with the toe of her little shoe,
‘Get out!’ she said, ‘You drunken mug, three days is enough for you.’
Others milked the boozers dry with inferior liquor, often mixing rum, gin and bar slops with all manner of spurious ‘flavours’ including methylated spirits, boot polish, saltpetre and tobacco juice. Such evil concoctions were known as Mulga Rum or Death Adder Juice. Others ignored the accepted practice of ‘three days and then the dead-house’ and kept pouring the drink until the cheque was gone. It was not uncommon for such determined drinkers, when they had exhausted their funds and finally sobered-up, to discover their horse, saddle, bridle and even their dog had also ‘jumped the bar’ and were now the landlord’s property.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll get my horse, tonight I’ll travel far.’
‘Oh no,’ she laughed, ‘You can’t do that, your horse has jumped the bar.’
and so he had. My saddle too; likewise my swag and dog.
No doubt she had me cornered like a possum up a log.
Reminiscing in The Chronicle (Adelaide) in January 1933 a reader observed, “When a bushman of the old school started out to ‘lamb down’ he generally did the job more thoroughly than any other. ‘Dead drunk’ was no meaningless term. For a man who was ‘dead drunk’ there was no better place than the dead-house — and most pubs of the time were equipped with these necessary buildings, where ‘Banjo’ or ‘Scottie,’ or ‘Bill the Nark’ could see snakes, and spiders, and other strange phenomena of alcoholic delirium without disturbing the more law-abiding section of the populace.”
Warren Fahey sings ‘Shickered’
Waking up in the dead-house must have been a horrifying experience, especially in summer. Typically they were a tin shed at the back of the hotel, often without a door. They would have stank of past inhabitants and echoed with the sound of blowflies repeatedly hitting the window to get out or get in. After dark they were joined by the whining of dive-bombing mossies. You would have been doing grand if there was a mattress.
Graphic stories of epic drinking followed by the delirium tremens, often known as the ‘horrors’ or ‘the shakes’, fueled many a campsite. According to a legend in a certain settlement one man swore off strong liquor for the rest of his life after seeing a frog hop out of the mug he had just raised lo his lips. He explained to the assembled that although he had in his time seen snakes with red hats and elephants in dress suits, he never before had seen a real live frog leap from his beer and scrabble along the bar counter.
It has been difficult to establish a date on the transition of the morgue dead-house to that of the boozer’s dead-house but the 1870s and 80s, also being the heydays of the itinerant bush worker, offers a few poignant newspaper references.
Sydney’s original mortuary dead-house was the old Water Police lock-up cells at Circular Quay and was, by all accounts, a most unsavory place.
A letter to the editor of The Empire Magazine (Sydney) December 1856, called for the coroner to to do something about “the filthy and disgraceful state of the dead-house at the old Water Police station”. The reader pointed out that “Dr. Mackellar had refused to make a post mortem examination of a body in the dead-house. It appears that some time ago Dr. Mackellar performed an operation of that kind in the dead-house, which he then found in such a disgustingly filthy and horrible condition, that he determined never again to enter it until some alteration had been effected. There was not even water there for him to wash his hands, and he was compelled to go out to the water side to wash them before he returned home. ” No power on earth,” be said, “should compel him to enter that charnel-house again.” One of the jurors remarked that there was then a body lying in the dead-house, but he would not go in to look at it for a thousand pound?.”
The earliest print reference to the use of dead-house as a sobering-up room appeared in The Argus 4th April 1865 when “Michael Conway pleaded ‘not guilty’ to a charge of him stealing a sum of money from the pocket of one John Riley, a labourer, in the neighbourhood of Lancefield, Victoria.
The prosecutor stated that on Sunday, the 5th March, he was with the prisoner at Whiteside’s public house. Prisoner asked him in the morning for half-a-crown, but prosecutor refused to give it to him. In the afternoon prosecutor had a drink in the bar, and afterwards went into the “dead-house.”
Mr. Adamson (Magistrate).- What is the dead-house?
Prosecutor.-It is a place where they put people to sleep, and they call it the dead house. (Laughter.) I went and lay down on one of the stretchers that are kept there.
Mr, Adamson.- What state were you in when you went into the dead-house?
Prosecutor (coolly).-I was what they call drunk. (Laughter.) When I woke up, I found that some of my money was gone. The money was wrapped in a piece of rag.
A witness named George Sampson, a servant in the house, proved that he saw the prisoner abstract the rag and take a pound note of it. The prosecutor told the prisoner afterwards that he had been robbed, and the latter said it served him right.
Alter two other witnesses ‘had been examined, the jury found the prisoner ” Guilty.”
Sentence-Six months’ imprisonment, with hard labour.
Another court report, this time from The Inquirer & Commercial News (Perth) 24 Jan. 1883,
When hearing the Victoria Plains murder case, the Chief Justice appeared to be some what surprised at one of the witnesses, the landlord of the hotel, speaking of the ‘ Dead House,’ and enquired what such a building was. ‘ It’s the place,’ replied the witness, ‘ where we put men in when they’re dead drunk until they get up sober. ‘ Upon hearing this His Honor smiled rather grimly, and suggested that the proper name for such a place would be the ‘Resurrection Room.’
LAMBING DOWN.
I’m a broken-hearted shearer, I’m ashamed to show my face, The way that I got lambed down is a sin and a disgrace; I put a cheque together, and thought that it would do, So I just slipped into Orange for to spend a week or two.
I thought I was no flat, so resolved to cut it fat; I dressed myself up in my best, put a poultice round my hat; I went to have a nobbler at a certain house in town, Where the barmaid she was cautioned for to lamb a fellow down.
I would get up in the morning to have a glass of stout; She cost me many a shilling, for she was in every shout. She would toss me up at Yankee Grab, and keep me on the booze: But somehow or the other I was always bound to lose.
My money getting short I resolved to know my fate; I asked this pretty barmaid if she would be my mate, When she said, ”Young man, on my feelings don’t encroach, I’m a decent married woman, and my husband drives the coach.”
I had two-and-six in silver and half-a-bar of soap, A box of Cockle’s pills and a pot of Holloway’s; I thought to turn a farmer and grow pumpkins near the town, But she squashed all my pumpkins when she had me lambed down.
I had two old shirts, but they were all in rags; A pair of moleskin trousers and a hat without a crown. This was my ten years’ gathering when clearing out of town; But it’s nothing when you’re used to it to do a lambing down.
SOURCE
The Queenslander, 13 Oct. 1894 (supplied by Specially Jim, Tambo)
DESTINED FOR THE DEADHOUSE
Nineteenth century bush workers, and that was the majority of our workforce up to around 1890, generally liked a drink. They worked hard and played harder. It was not uncommon for shearers or drovers in receipt of a fat cheque from a season’s work to knock it down in the first pub they found. Most had good intentions of going to the ‘big smoke’, as they called the city or heading straight to their loved ones, but they often fell victim to their own thirst. Things changed once the railway linked the country, but for a man on horseback, or stagecoach, travel was a daunting prospect and something best considered after a few drinks. It wasn’t unusual for a man to hit a shanty pub and hand his hard-earned cheque to the landlord with instructions to “let me know when I’ve cut out three days”. After three days of non-stop boozing the man was typically thrown into a sobering-up room at the back of the establishment. This room was known as the ‘deadhouse’. The local constabulary was responsible for looking in on these hotels and discouraging drunken behaviour. After sobering up most men returned to the bar for another round of excessive drinking – it was a vicious cycle.
In the colonial era, designated hotels, especially large rural establishments, were obligated to maintain a room exclusively to hold dead bodies until the police determined what they had died from and where the body should be sent. These temporary morgues appear to be the origin of the boozer’s ‘deadhouse’. One suspects more than one drunk was dispatched to these rooms to sober up, and I have heard stories of men waking from the dead to find real dead bodies lying next to them.
Oldtimers talked of commencing a heavy drinking spree as ‘to lamb down’ – no doubt inferring they were like lambs to the slaughter. It is probably no coincidence that the shearing analogy entered our bush slanguage to describe such enthusiastic drinking. They also talked of being ‘lambed down’ which inferred that they had been taken advantage of by the landlord who encouraged their hard drinking and then took unfair if not criminal advantage to relieve the unfortunates of any remaining money. Jim Mundey, a teamster, told about one particularly unsavoury landlady who had her own method of lambing down innocent bush workers (Warren Fahey Oral History Collection NLA). She gladly accepted their season’s cheque and duly cut off the drink after three days, throwing the victim into the dead-house to sober up. When the poor man surfaced a day later, usually white as a ghost and with the shakes, she would hand him a cheque for the balance of his money. He didn’t know that she had baked the cheque in the oven. After riding a hundred miles or so the poor sod would look in his saddle bag to find nothing but dust. He’d been well and truly lambed down!
Others milked the boozers dry with inferior liquor, often mixing bar slops with bad rum and tobacco juice. Others ignored the ‘three days and then the dead-house’ and kept pouring the drink until the cheque was gone. It was not uncommon for such determined drinkers, when they had exhausted their funds and finally sobered up, to discover their horse, saddle and bridle had also ‘jumped the bar’ and were now the landlord’s property.
Reminiscing in The Chronicle (Adelaide) in January 1933 a reader observed, “When a bushman of the old school started out to ‘lamb down’ he generally did the job more thoroughly than any other. ‘Dead drunk’ was no meaningless term. For a man who was ‘dead drunk’ there was no better place than the dead-house — and most pubs of the time were equipped with these necessary buildings, where ‘Banjo’ or ‘Scottie,’ or ‘Bill the Nark’ could see snakes, and spiders, and other strange phenomena of alcoholic delirium without disturbing the more law-abiding section of the populace.”
Waking up in the dead-house must have been a horrifying experience, especially in summer. Typically they were a tin shed at the back of the hotel, often without a window or door. They would have carried the stink of past inhabitants, and echoed with the sound of blowflies repeatedly hitting the window to get out or get in. After dark the blowies were joined by the whining of dive-bombing mossies.
The bushman would have been doing grand if there was a mattress in the room.
It has been difficult to establish a date on the transition of the morgue dead-house to that of the boozer’s dead-house but the 1870s and 80s, also being the heydays of the itinerant bush worker, offers a few poignant newspaper references.
Sydney’s original mortuary dead-house was the old Water Police lock-up cells at Circular Quay and was, by all accounts, a most unsavoury place.
A letter to the editor of The Empire Magazine (Sydney) in December 1856, called for the coroner to do something about “the filthy and disgraceful state of the dead-house at the old Water Police station”. The reader pointed out, “Dr. Mackellar had refused to make a post-mortem examination of a body in the dead-house. It appears that some time ago Dr. Mackellar performed an operation of that kind in the dead-house, which he then found in such a disgustingly filthy and horrible condition that he determined never again to enter it until some alteration had been effected. There was not even water there for him to wash his hands, and he was compelled to go to the water side to wash them before returning home. ” No power on earth,” be said, “should compel him to enter that charnel-house again.” One of the jurors remarked that there was then a body lying in the dead-house, but he would not go in to look at it for a thousand-pound?”
The earliest print reference to the use of dead-house as a sobering-up room appeared in The Argus 4th April 1865 when “Michael Conway pleaded ‘not guilty’ to a charge of him stealing a sum of money from the pocket of one John Riley, a labourer, in the neighbourhood of Lancefield.
The prosecutor stated that on Sunday, the 5th of March, he was with the prisoner at Whiteside’s public house. The prisoner asked him for half a crown in the morning, but the prosecutor refused to give it to him. In the afternoon prosecutor had a drink in the bar and afterwards went into the “dead-house.”
Mr. Adamson (Magistrate).- What is the dead-house?
Prosecutor.-It is a place where they put people to sleep, and they call it the dead house. (Laughter.) I went and lay down on one of tho stretchers that are kept there.
Mr, Adamson.- What state were you In when you went into the dead-house?
Prosecutor (coolly).-I was what they call drunk. (Laughter.) When I woke up, I found that some of my money was gone. Tho money was wrapped in a piece of rag.
A witness named George Sampson, a servant in the house, proved that he saw the prisoner abstract the rag and take a pound note of it. The prosecutor told the prisoner afterwards that he had been robbed, and the latter said it served him right.
Alter two other witnesses ‘had ‘been examined, the jury found the prisoner ” Guilty.”
Sentence-Six months’ imprisonment, with’ hard labour.”
IT IS FOLLY TO BE WISE
“I had not been long on the track when I was put in mind of Dr. Johnson’s words about marriage – ” Like flies on a window, those outside trying to get in and those inside trying to get out” I saw men going to town in order to knock down their cheques, and I saw others going from town to the bush in order to raise another for the same purpose – to knock it down. It is for that reason some hotels keep a deadhouse for the accommodation of those who become glorious and over the ills of life victorious. Lazarus rose from the tomb when he was called, but the lazari of the dead house rise without calling, and when they rise they find themselves in that condition known to the learned as “fly-blown.” That is to say, ” without the price of a hair of the dog that bit them.” I have not gone through a man who was dead drunk, but I do not think that I would be much ashamed if I were caught in flagrante delicto, because to take money from such a man is to deprive him of the power to injure himself. When those dead heads find themselves fly-blown they return to the bush sadder, but alas, not wiser, men, because they play at the same old game to the end of the chapter. Before they return to the bush they receive a bottle of whisky as a souvenir of their visit.
There is a yarn of a bushman who planted his bottle in order to visit it when he needed a nobbler. His mates, thinking that he had such a treasure, determined to “spring the plant,” if they could. With a firmness of purpose worthy of a better cause they persevered until they succeeded. They drank the contents of course, but they filled the bottle with a fluid undreamt of in the philosophy of the owner. When he visited his treasure he noticed that it had been tampered with. Determined to leave the visitors an empty bottle if they should visit it again. he drank the contents of the bottle. When ignorance is bliss it is folly to be wise.”
SOURCE
Border Watch (Mt Gambier) Wed 30 Oct. 1907
I’ll drink to that. Drinking toasts
Australians have an international reputation for being hard drinkers. We are referred to as – and we call ourselves – booze artists, winos, plonksters, groggers, piss artists, grog guzzlers, beer barons and bloody good drinkers. We go on the ran-tan, to a booze-up, a piss up, up to the boozer or to the rubbity-dub. We get pissed as newts, shickered, full as a goog, blasted, full as ticks or pissed as a fart. We get home trying to avoid the booze bus and the blister and strife. Next day we recover with a stinker of a headache or a hangover from hell, and the only way to recover is to have a hair of the dog that took a bite out of you.
WHY THE HELL DO WE DRINK?
We drink for joy and become miserable.
We drink for sociability and become argumentative
We drink for sophistication and become obnoxious.
We drink to help us sleep and awake exhausted.
We drink for exhilaration and end up depressed.
We drink to gain confidence and become afraid.
We drink to make conversation and become incoherent.
We drink to diminish our problems and see them multiply.
The preservation of the Aussie male
The horse and mule live 30 years
And nothing know of wine and beers
The goat and sheep at 20 die
With never taste of scotch or rye
The cow drinks water by the ton
And at 18 years is mostly done
The dog at 16 cashes in
Without the aid of rum or gin
The cat in milk and water soaks
And then in 12 short years it crocks
The modest, sober, bone-dry hen
Lays eggs for nogs and dies at ten
All animals are strictly dry
They sinless live and quickly die
But sinful gin-full, rum soaked men
Survive for three score years and ten
And some of us, the mighty few
Stay pickled till we’re 92
(From Bob Taylor, Rockhampton, Sept. 1991)
DRINK
He that goes to bed thirsty rises healthy
DRINKING TOASTS
Here’s to you as good as you are
Here’s to em as bad as I am
And as good as you are and as bad as I am
I’m as good as you are as bad as I am.
I wish you health
I wish you wealth
I wish you gold in store
I wish you heaven when you die
I wish I could wish you more.
Here’s to the turkey when you’re hungry
Champagne when you’re dry,
A pretty girl when you need her
And heaven when you die.
Merry met, and merry part,
I drink to thee with all my heart.
God made the vine
Was it a sin
That man made wine
To drown trouble in?
Here’s to the tree of life
Long may it stand
It grows upon two rocks
Upon the Isle of Man
Here’s to that little plant
That doth around it twine
It come sin flower every month
And bears fruit once in nine.
May God above send down a dove
With wings as sharp as razors
To cut the flamin’ mongrel’s throat
‘Who tried to cut our wages
There are many good reasons for drinking –
And one has just come into my head
If a man doesn’t drink when he’s living
How the hell can he drink when he’s dead.
The earliest drinking ‘establishments’ on the goldfields and small communities were often little more than shanty tents. There ‘refreshments’ were often dubious. Here’s an account from 1867.
A SLY GROG SHANTY
The proprietor of the establishment, who had been looking us over with a grave air while we made our purchases, suddenly came up behind us: “Psst! Psst” he directs at us. All three of us turn around and, at a mysterious “Ssh!” accompanied by just a slight movement of the head, we retrace our steps. Another “Ssh!” greets our return and, to our astonishment, the proprietor deserts us to go outside and scout around. We were in the dark. What is the matter? we ask, and for answer all we get is a third “Ssh!” However our man, after having been assured beyond any possible doubt that the coast is clear, returns and disappears underneath his counter. Then, after some seconds have gone by, we see, springing up like a jack-in-the-box, this distraught-looking face which makes a sign to one of us to go down and join him. Shall we go, shall we not go? One of us plucks up the courage, plunges down behind the boards which are covered with a shiny oilcloth and then emerges crimson of countenance and quite struck dumb. A second takes his place, and then he too comes back exactly the same colour and equally bereft of speech. Heavens! For my part I was only reluctantly to be persuaded to follow where the other two had gone, but I had to demonstrate I was not wanting in courage so I had no alternative. Once under the counter, I start to say something; the most urgent “ssh”-es make me hold my tongue and I returned even more scarlet than my companions. I was choking, gasping for air; I had imbibed a “nip”! And why? Wherefore this stage setting in the Bouchardy manner, the ominous throbbing in the orchestra, furtive glances into the wings, mysterious signals,almost trap doors to boot, all this for one small glass?
My God yes, and what sort of a brandy it was, come to that!
SOURCE
In 1852 Antoine Fauchery sailed from Gravesend in the Emily for Melbourne, where he arrived on 22 October. He went to Ballarat and for two years worked on the goldfields.
J
A
L
Miscellaneous Lore
WHY ‘E’ IS POPULAR
September I, 1927. PINKIE. 23
“E” is the most popular letter because it was the beginning and last of Eve; the beginning of Eternity, the end of Time and Space; the beginning of every End and the end of every race. It’s the end of fame and Fortune. It is also a most unpopular letter. For it is never in cash, always in Debt, everlasting in misery, never out of Danger, and always in Rent, hell and Near Beer.
SMOKING PIPES
F Fowler 1859 MSS Mitchell Library
The ‘cutty’ is of all shapes, sizes and shades. Some are Negro heads, set with rows o0f very white teeth – some are mermaids, showing their more presentable halves up the front of the bowls, and stowing away their weedy fundaments under the items. Some are Turkish caps – some are Russian skulls. Some are Houris, some are expressions of the French, some are Margaret Catchpoles. Some are as small as my lady’s thimble – others as large as an old Chelsea teacup. Everybody has one, from the little pinafored schoolboy to the old veteran who came out with the second batch of convicts. A cutty-bowl, like a Creole’s eye, is most prized when blackest. Tobacco, I should add here, is seldom sold in a cut form, Each man carries a cake about with him, like a card case; each boy has his stick of Cavendish, like so much candy. The cigars usually smoked are manilas, which are as cheap and good as can be met with in any part of the world. Lola Montez, during her Australian tour, spoke well of them. What stronger puff could they have than hers?
LIFE-SAVING FACTS for every family in the Colony
PAM88/767
R COAD
1889 Sydney
The following list is ‘some’ of the licensed hotels operating in Sydney in that year as detailed in the Bigges Report.
HOTELS IN SYDNEY IN 1819 THE ARM CHAIR
Mitchell Library files.
The Australia Hotel foundation stone 18th June 1889 by Henry Parkes
Their advertisement in the Bulletin advertised ‘superior accommodation at 12s 6p a night.’
Not at all Colonial!
THE ARM CHAIR
Oct 1853 periodical Sydney
Scene: George Street, Sydney. A gent standing at the door of a lodging-house, a drayman is discovered waiting for his payment.
Gent: What’s the damage?
Drayman: Five shillings, sir, ow you please.
Gent: Ha! There you are, and the cheapest job I’ve had done since the Rush was announced. Why don’t you come in and have a nobbler.
Drayman: No, thank you, sir, I never takes a nobbler.
Gent: Oh! You’re a teetotaller, are you?
Drayman: No, sir, I likes me glass at home, but I never takes on treats.
Gent: Ah! Not at all Colonial, I see, good day!
Tombstone
To the memory of Tommus Sykes
It wasn’t roomatiz or growt
Az snuffed my mortal kaqndle out;
Nor woz it famun, bawl or fite
Az turned my mornin inter nite;
I dyed az many dyed before,
And still keep dyin by the score ñ
I sunk intoo this erly tumb
Throo dinkin stuff call’ d’doctored rum’
Advertisement for Rainbow Inn Sydney 1830s
By landlord Toogood.
A Rainbow was built not only of wood
But of stones, bricks and mortar and kept by Toogood
Stands on the corner of king St where you can avail
Yourself if you choose with the best of good ale
My motto’s ‘industry’ and ever shall be
I think with great pleasure all my friends that I see
Buy naught but the best if bettered
Spirits, ales, wines ñ at the Rainbow
Beehive Inn
Sign posted 1840s Goulburn
Aust Journal. 1869
In this house we’re all alive
Good liquor makes us funn
If you are dry come in and try
The virtue of our honey
Beehive Inn (pub name)
A similar sign at the Beehive Inn Richmond.
We’re all alive within this hive
Good liquor makes us funny
So if you are dry step in and try
The flower of our honey
A passing traveller thought he’d add a comment
I am a fly and very dry
And I’d like to taste your honey
But if I step in your bees might sting
Because I’ve got no bloody money.
1889s when the Beehive Inn opened at Cuttabri
The faithful Irishman
From Old & New Sydney by O West. Pub 1882
Pub notice
Since man has proved to be unjust
How can I tell what man to trust
And to prevent further sorrow
Pay day I’ll trust tomorrow
My ale is good my measure just
My care here is no mans sorrow
So pay today ñ I’ll trust tomorrow
Drinker’s table or how 2 pints = 30 days
2 pints 1 quart
2 quarts 1 argument
1 argument 1 fight
1 fight 1 cop
1 cop 1 arrest
1 arrest 1 judge
1 judge 30 days