muscle, eye, endurance, will be all at, so to speak, concert-pitch, and sheep after sheep will be shorn with a precision and celerity even awful to the unprofessional observer.

The unpastoral reader may be informed that speed and completeness of denudation are the grand desiderata in shearing; the employer thinks principally of the latter, the shearer principally of the former. To adjust equitably the proportion is one of those incomplete aspirations which torment humanity. Hence the contest—old as human society—between labour and capital.

This is the first day. According to old-established custom, a kind of truce obtains. It is before the battle, the "salut," when no hasty word or too demonstrative action can be suffered by the canons of good taste. Red Bill, Flash Jack, Jem the Scooper, and other roaring blades, more famous for expedition than faithful manipulation, are shearing today with a painstaking precision, as of men to whom character is everything.

Mr Gordon marches softly up and down, regarding the shearers with a paternal and gratified expression, occasionally hinting at slight improvements of style, or expressing unqualified approval as a sheep is turned out shaven rather than shorn. All goes on well. Nothing is heard but expressions of goodwill and enthusiasm for the general welfare. It is a triumph of the dignity of labour.

One o'clock. Mr Gordon moved on to the bell and sounded it. At the first stroke several men on their way to the pens stopped abruptly and began to put on their coats. One fellow of an alert nature (Master Jack Windsor) had just finished his sheep and was sharpening his shears, when his eye caught Mr Gordon's form in proximity to the final bell. With a bound like a wild cat, he reached the pen and drew out his sheep a bare second before the first stroke, amidst the laughter and congratulations of his comrades. Another man had his hand on the pen-gate at the same instant, but by the Median law was compelled to return sheepless. He was cheered, but ironically. Those whose sheep were in an unfinished stage quietly completed them; the others moving off to their huts, where their board literally smoked with abundance.

An hour passed. The meal was concluded; the smoke was over; and the more careful men were back in the shed sharpening their shears by two o'clock. Punctually at that hour the bell repeated its summons DE CAPO. The warm afternoon gradually lengthened its shadows; the shears clicked in tireless monotone; the pens filled and became empty. The wool-presses yawned for the mountain of fleeces which filled the bins in front of them, divided into various grades of excellence, and continuously disgorged them, neatly and cubically packed and branded.

At six o'clock the bell brought the day's work to a close. The sheep of each man were counted in his presence, and noted down with scrupulous care, the record being written out in full and hung up for public inspection in the shed next day. This important ceremony over, master and men, manager, labourers and supernumeraries, betook themselves to their separate abodes, with such keen avoidance of delay that in five minutes not a soul was left in or near the great building lately so busy and populous, except the boys who were sweeping up the floor. The silence of ages seems to fall and settle upon it.

Next morning at a rather earlier hour every man is at his post. Business is meant decidedly. Now commences the delicate and difficult part of the superintendence which keeps Mr Gordon at his post in the shed, nearly from daylight till dark, for from eight to ten weeks. During the first day he has formed a sort of gauge of each man's temper and workmanship. For now, and henceforth, the natural bias of each shearer will appear. Some try to shear too fast, and in their haste shear badly. Some are rough and savage with the sheep, which do occasionally kick and become unquiet at critical times; and it must be confessed are provoking enough. Some shear very fairly and handsomely to a superficial eye, but commit the unpardonable offence of "leaving wool on." Some are deceitful, shearing carefully when overlooked, but "racing" and otherwise misbehaving directly the eye of authority is diverted. These and many other tricks and defects require to be noted and abated, quietly but firmly, by the manager of the shed—firmly because evil would develop and spread ruinously if not checked; quietly because immense loss might be incurred by a strike. Shearing differs from other work in this wise: it is work against time, more especially in Riverina. If the wool be not off the backs of the sheep before November, all sorts of draw-backs and destructions supervene. The spear-shaped grass-seeds, specially formed as if in special collusion with the Evil One, hasten to bury themselves in the wool, and even in the flesh of the tender victims. Dust rises in red clouds from the unmoistened, betrampled meadows so lately verdurous and flower-spangled. From snowy white to an unlovely dark brown turn the carefully washed fleeces, causing anathema from overseers and depreciation from brokers. All these losses of temper, trouble, and money become inevitable if shearing be protracted, it may be, beyond a given week.

Hence, as in harvest with a short allowance of fair weather, discipline must be tempered with diplomacy. Lose your temper, and be over particular: off go Billy May, Abraham Lawson, and half-a-dozen of your best men, making a weekly difference of perhaps two or three thousand sheep for the remainder of the shearing. Can you not replace them? Not so! Every shed in Riverina will be hard at work during this present month of September and for every hour of October. Till that time not a shearer will come to your gate, except, perhaps, one or two useless, characterless men. Are you to tolerate bad workmanship? Not that either. But try all other means with your men before you resort to harshness; and be quite certain that your sentence is just, and that you can afford the defection.

So our friend Mr Gordon, wise from many tens of thousands of shorn sheep that have been counted out past his steady eye, criticises temperately, but watchfully. He reproves sufficiently, and no more, any glaring fault; makes his calculation as to who are really bad shearers, and can be discharged without loss to the commonwealth, or who can shear fairly and can be coached up to a decent average. One division, slow, and good only when slow, have to be watched lest they emulate "the talent," and so come to grief. Then "the talent" has to be mildly admonished from time to time lest they force the pace, set a bad example, and lure the other men on to "racing." This last leads to slovenly shearing, ill-usage of the sheep, and general dissatisfaction.

Tact, temper, patience, and firmness are each and all necessary in that Captain of Industry who has the very delicate and important task of superintending a large woolshed. Hugh Gordon had shown all in such proportion as would have made a distinguished man anywhere, had fortune not adjusted for him this particular profession. Calm with the consciousness of strength, he was kind and considerate in manner as in nature, until provoked by glaring dishonesty or incivility. Then the lion part of his nature woke up, so that it commonly went ill with the aggressor. As this was matter of public report, he had little occasion to spoil the repose of his bearing. Day succeeds day, and for a fortnight the machinery goes on smoothly and successfully. The sheep arrive at an appointed day and hour by detachments and regiments at the washpen. They depart thence, like good boys on Saturday night, redolent of soap and water, and clean to a fault. They enter the shed white and flossy as newly combed poodles to emerge, on the way back to their pasturage, slim, delicate, agile, with a bright black A legibly branded with tar on their paper-white skins.

The Anabanco world—stiffish but undaunted—is turning out of bed one morning. Ha! what sounds are these? And why does the room look so dark? Rain, as I'm alive.