"Dossing Out" And "Camping"

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Title:     "Dossing Out" And "Camping"
Author: Henry Lawson [More Titles by Lawson]

At least two hundred poor beggars were counted sleeping out on the
pavements of the main streets of Sydney the other night--grotesque
bundles of rags lying under the verandas of the old Fruit Markets and
York Street shops, with their heads to the wall and their feet to the
gutter. It was raining and cold that night, and the unemployed had
been driven in from Hyde Park and the bleak Domain--from dripping
trees, damp seats, and drenched grass--from the rain, and cold, and
the wind. Some had sheets of old newspapers to cover them-and some
hadn't. Two were mates, and they divided a _Herald_ between
them. One had a sheet of brown paper, and another (lucky man!) had a
bag--the only bag there. They all shrank as far into their rags as
possible--and tried to sleep. The rats seemed to take them for
rubbish, too, and only scampered away when one of the outcasts moved
uneasily, or coughed, or groaned--or when a policeman came along.

One or two rose occasionally and rooted in the dust-boxes on the
pavement outside the shops--but they didn't seem to get anything.
They were feeling "peckish," no doubt, and wanted to see if they
could get something to eat before the corporation carts came along.
So did the rats.

Some men can't sleep very well on an empty stomach--at least, not at
first; but it mostly comes with practice. They often sleep for ever
in London. Not in Sydney as yet--so we say.

Now and then one of our outcasts would stretch his cramped limbs to
ease them--but the cold soon made him huddle again. The pavement must
have been hard on the men's "points," too; they couldn't dig holes
nor make soft places for their hips, as you can in camp out back. And
then, again, the stones had nasty edges and awkward slopes, for the
pavements were very uneven.

The Law came along now and then, and had a careless glance at the
unemployed in bed. They didn't look like sleeping beauties. The Law
appeared to regard them as so much rubbish that ought not to have been
placed there, and for the presence of which somebody ought to be
prosecuted by the Inspector of Nuisances. At least, that was the
expression the policeman had on his face.

And so Australian workmen lay at two o'clock in the morning in the
streets of Sydney, and tried to get a little sleep before the traffic
came along and took their bed.

The idea of sleeping out might be nothing to bushmen--not even an
idea; but "dossing out" in the city and "camping" in the bush are
two very different things. In the bush you can light a fire, boil
your billy, and make some tea--if you have any; also fry a chop (there
are no sheep running round in the city). You can have a clean meal,
take off your shirt and wash it, and wash yourself--if there's water
enough--and feel fresh and clean. You can whistle and sing by the
camp-fire, and make poetry, and breathe fresh air, and watch the
everlasting stars that keep the mateless traveller from going mad as
he lies in his lonely camp on the plains. Your privacy is even more
perfect than if you had a suite of rooms at the Australia; you are at
the mercy of no policeman; there's no one to watch you but God--and He
won't move you on. God watches the "dossers-out," too, in the city,
but He doesn't keep them from being moved on or run in.

With the city unemployed the case is entirely different. The city
outcast cannot light a fire and boil a billy--even if he has one--he'd
be run in at once for attempting to commit arson, or create a riot, or
on suspicion of being a person of unsound mind. If he took off his
shirt to wash it, or went in for a swim, he'd be had up for indecently
exposing his bones--and perhaps he'd get flogged. He cannot whistle
or sing on his pavement bed at night, for, if he did, he'd be
violently arrested by two great policemen for riotous conduct. He
doesn't see many stars, and he's generally too hungry to make poetry.
He only sleeps on the pavement on sufferance, and when the policeman
finds the small hours hang heavily on him, he can root up the
unemployed with his big foot and move him on--or arrest him for being
around with the intention to commit a felony; and, when the wretched
"dosser" rises in the morning, he cannot shoulder his swag and take
the track--he must cadge a breakfast at some back gate or restaurant,
and then sit in the park or walk round and round, the same old
hopeless round, all day. There's no prison like the city for a poor
man.

Nearly every man the traveller meets in the bush is about as dirty and
ragged as himself, and just about as hard up; but in the city nearly
every man the poor unemployed meets is a dude, or at least, well
dressed, and the unemployed _feels_ dirty and mean and degraded
by the contrast--and despised.

And he can't help feeling like a criminal. It may be imagination, but
every policeman seems to regard him with suspicion, and this is
terrible to a sensitive man.

We once had the key of the street for a night. We don't know how much
tobacco we smoked, how many seats we sat on, or how many miles we
walked before morning. But we do know that we felt like a felon, and
that every policeman seemed to regard us with a suspicious eye; and at
last we began to squint furtively at every trap we met, which,
perhaps, made him more suspicious, till finally we felt bad enough to
be run in and to get six months' hard.

Three winters ago a man, whose name doesn't matter, had a small office
near Elizabeth Street, Sydney. He was an hotel broker, debt
collector, commission agent, canvasser, and so on, in a small way--a
very small way--but his heart was big. He had a partner. They
batched in the office, and did their cooking over a gas lamp. Now,
every day the man-whose-name-doesn't-matter would carefully collect
the scraps of food, add a slice or two of bread and butter, wrap it
all up in a piece of newspaper, and, after dark, step out and leave
the parcel on a ledge of the stonework outside the building in the
street. Every morning it would be gone. A shadow came along in the
night and took it. This went on for many months, till at last one
night the man-whose-name-doesn't-matter forgot to put the parcel out,
and didn't think of it till he was in bed. It worried him, so that at
last he had to get up and put the scraps outside. It was midnight.
He felt curious to see the shadow, so he waited until it came along.
It wasn't his long-lost brother, but it was an old mate of his.

Let us finish with a sketch:

The scene was Circular Quay, outside the Messageries sheds. The usual
number of bundles of misery--covered more or less with dirty sheets of
newspaper--lay along the wall under the ghastly glare of the electric
light. Time--shortly after midnight. From among the bundles an old
man sat up. He cautiously drew off his pants, and then stood close to
the wall, in his shirt, tenderly examining the seat of the trousers.
Presently he shook them out, folded them with great care, wrapped them
in a scrap of newspaper, and laid them down where his head was to be.
He had thin, hairy legs and a long grey beard. From a bundle of rags
he extracted another pair of pants, which were all patches and
tatters, and into which he engineered his way with great caution.
Then he sat down, arranged the paper over his knees, laid his old
ragged grey head back on his precious Sunday-go-meetings-and slept.

 

[THE END]

Notes on Australianisms

Based on my own speech over the years, with some checking in the dictionaries. Not all of these are peculiar to Australian slang, but are important in Lawson's stories, and carry overtones.

bagman: commercial traveller

Bananaland: Queensland

billabong. Based on an aboriginal word. Sometimes used for an anabranch (a bend in a river cut off by a new channel, but more often used for one that, in dry season or droughts especially, is cut off at either or both ends from the main stream. It is often just a muddy pool, and may indeed dry up completely.

billy: quintessentially Australian. It is like (or may even be made out of) a medium-sized can, with wire handles and a lid. Used to boil water. If for tea, the leaves are added into the billy itself; the billy may be swung ('to make the leaves settle') or a eucalyptus twig place across the top, more ritual than pragmatic. These stories are supposedly told while the billy is suspended over the fire at night, at the end of a tramp. (Also used in want of other things, for cooking)

blackfellow (also, blackman): condescending for Australian Aboriginal

blackleg: someone who is employed to cross a union picket line to break a workers' strike. As Molly Ivins said, she was brought up on the three great commandments: do not lie; do not steal; never cross a picket line. Also scab.

blanky or --- : Fill in your own favourite word. Usually however used for "bloody"

blucher: a kind of half-boot (named after Austrian general)

blued: of a wages cheque: all spent extravagantly--and rapidly.

bluey: swag. Supposedly because blankets were mostly blue (so Lawson)

boggabri: never heard of it. It is a town in NSW: the dictionaries seem to suggest that it is a plant, which fits context. What then is a 'tater-marrer' (potato-marrow?). Any help?

bowyangs: ties (cord, rope, cloth) put around trouser legs below knee

bullocky: Bullock driver. A man who drove teams of bullocks yoked to wagons carrying e.g. wool bales or provisions. Proverbially rough and foul mouthed.

bush: originally referred to the low tangled scrubs of the semi-desert regions ('mulga' and 'mallee'), and hence equivalent to "outback". Now used generally for remote rural areas ("the bush") and scrubby forest.

bushfire: wild fires: whether forest fires or grass fires. bushman/bushwoman: someone who lives an isolated existence, far from cities, "in the bush". (today: a "bushy")

bushranger: an Australian "highwayman", who lived in the 'bush'-- scrub--and attacked especially gold carrying coaches and banks. Romanticised as anti-authoritarian Robin Hood figures--cf. Ned Kelly--but usually very violent.

cheque: wages for a full season of sheep-shearing; meant to last until the next year, including a family, but often "blued' in a 'spree'

chyack: (chy-ike) like chaffing; to tease, mildly abuse

cocky: a farmer, esp. dairy farmers (='cow-cockies')

cubby-house: or cubby. Children's playhouse ("Wendy house" is commercial form))

Darlinghurst: Sydney suburb--where the gaol was in those days

dead marine: empty beer bottle

dossing: sleeping rough or poorly (as in a "doss-house")

doughboy: kind of dumpling

drover: one who "droves" cattle or sheep.

droving: driving on horseback cattle or sheep from where they were fattened to a a city, or later, a rail-head.

drown the miller: to add too much water to flour when cooking. Used metaphorically in story.

fossick: pick over areas for gold. Not mining as such.

half-caser: Two shillings and sixpence. As a coin, a half-crown.

half-sov.: a coin worth half a pound (sovereign)

Gladesville: Sydney suburb--site of mental hospital.

goanna: various kinds of monitor lizards. Can be quite a size.

Homebush: Saleyard, market area in Sydney

humpy: originally an aboriginal shelter (=gunyah); extended to a settler's hut

jackaroo: (Jack + kangaroo; sometimes jackeroo)--someone, in early days a new immigrant from England, learning to work on a sheep/cattle station (U.S. "ranch")

jumbuck: a sheep (best known from Waltzing Matilda: "where's that jolly jumbuck, you've got in your tucker bag".

larrikin: anything from a disrespectful young man to a violent member of a gang ("push"). Was considered a major social problem in Sydney of the 1880's to 1900. The _Bulletin_, a magazine in which much of Lawson was published, spoke of the "aggressive, soft-hatted "stoush brigade". Anyone today who is disrespectful of authority or convention is said to show the larrikin element in the Australian character.

larrikiness: jocular feminine form

leather-jacket: kind of pancake (more often a fish, these days)

lucerne: cattle feed-a leguminous plant, alfalfa in US

lumper: labourer; esp. on wharves?

mallee: dwarfed eucalyptus trees growing in very poor soil and under harsh rainfall conditions. Usually many stems emerging from the ground, creating a low thicket.

Maoriland: Lawson's name for New Zealand

marine, dead: see dead

mooching: wandering idly, not going anywhere in particular

mug: gullible person, a con-man's 'mark' (potential victim)

mulga: Acacia sp. ("wattle" in Australian) especially Acacia aneura; growing in semi-desert conditions. Used as a description of such a harsh region.

mullock: the tailings left after gold has been removed. In Lawson generally mud (alluvial) rather than rock

myall: aboriginal living in a traditional--pre-conquest--manner

narked: annoyed

navvies: labourers (especially making roads, railways; originally canals, thus from 'navigators')

nobbler: a drink

nuggety: compact but strong physique; small but well-muscled

pannikin: metal mug

peckish: hungry--usually only mildly so. Use here is thus ironic.

poley: a dehorned cow

poddy-(calf): a calf separated from its mother but still needing milk

rouseabout: labourer in a (sheep) shearing shed. Considered to be, as far as any work is, unskilled labour.

sawney: silly, gormless

selector: small farmer who under the "Selection Act (Alienation of Land Act", Sydney 1862 could settle on a few acres of land and farm it, with hope of buying it. As the land had been leased by "squatters" to run sheep, they were NOT popular. The land was usually pretty poor, and there was little transport to get food to market, many, many failed. (The same mistake was made after WWI-- returned soldiers were given land to starve on.)

shanty: besides common meaning of shack it refers to an unofficial (and illegal) grog-shop; in contrast to the legal 'pub'.

spieler; con artist

sliprails: in lieu of a gate, the rails of a fence may be loosely socketed into posts, so that they may 'let down' (i.e. one end pushed in socket, the other end resting on the ground). See 'A Day on a Selection'

spree: prolonged drinking bout--days, weeks.

stoush: a fight,

strike: the perhaps the Shearers' strike in Barcaldine, Queensland, 1891 gjc]

sundowner: a swagman (see) who is NOT looking for work, but a "handout". Lawson explains the term as referring to someone who turns up at a station at sundown, just in time for "tea" i.e. the evening meal. In view of the Great Depression of the time, these expressions of attitude are probably unfair, but the attitudes are common enough even today.

Surry Hills: Sydney inner suburb (where I live)

swagman (swaggy): Generally, anyone who is walking in the "outback" with a swag. (See "The Romance of the Swag" in Children of the Bush, also a PG Etext) Lawson also restricts it at times to those whom he considers to be tramps, not looking for work but for "handouts". See 'travellers'.

'swelp: mild oath of affirmation ="so help me [God]"

travellers: "shearers and rouseabouts travelling for work" (Lawson).

whare: small Maori house--is it used here for European equivalent? Help anyone?

whipping the cat: drunk

[The end]
Henry Lawson's short story: "Dossing Out" And "Camping"

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