Plain Living by Rolf Boldrewood — Read

Local critics were not lacking around Mooramah, as in other places. They failed not to make unfavourable comments upon Hubert's decided course of action. They were pleased to say "that young man was going too fast"-was leading his father into hazardous speculations; all this new country that such a fuss was made about was too far off to pay interest upon the capital for years and years to come; the Austral Agency Company had better mind what they were about, or they would drop something serious if they went on backing every boy that wanted to take up outside country, instead of making the most of what his family had and helping his parents at home. As for young Dacre, he would most likely get his sheep eaten by the blacks and himself speared, as he knew nothing about the bush, and hardly could tell the difference between a broken-mouthed ewe and a weaner. Besides, the season might "turn round" after all-there was plenty of time for rain yet. Most likely it would come in February, as it had often done before. Travelling sheep was a most expensive game, and you were never done putting your hand in your pocket."

Thus argued the unambitious, stay-at-home, easy-going section of society which obtains in rural Australia in almost the same proportion and degree that it does in English counties. In the older-settled portions of the land one may discern the same tendency to over-crowding the given area with unnecessary adults, procuring but a bare subsistence, narrowing with each generation as in Britain, where sons of proprietors are too often contented to sink somewhat in the social scale rather than forego the so-called "comforts" of civilised life. The poorly-paid curate, the Irish squireen, "Jock, the Laird's brother," and the French _hobereau_, so cordially hated by the peasantry before the Revolution, are examples of this class.