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No. 1 Letter from Joscelyn de Greene, of Wiltshire, England, to college friend

Dear Gus,

The Governor has fixed things up for me at last. I am not to go to India, but to Australia. It seems the Governor met some old Australian swell named Moneygrub at a dinner in the City. He has thousands of acres of land and herds of sheep, and I am to go out and learn the business of sheep raising. Of course it is not quite the same as going to India; but some really decent people do go out to Australia sometimes, I am told, and I expect it won't be so bad. In India one generally goes into the Civil Service, nothing to do and lots of niggers to wait on you but the Australian Civil Service no fellow can well go into--it is awful low business, I hear. I have been going in for gun and revolver practice so as to be able to hold my own against the savages and the serpents in the woods of Australia. Mr Moneygrub says there isn't much fighting with the savages nowadays; but, he says, the Union shearers will give me all the fight I want. What is a Union shearer, I wonder? My mother has ordered an extra large artist's umbrella for me to take with me for fear of sunstroke, and I can hold it over me while watching the flocks. She didn't half like my going until Mr Moneygrub said that they always dressed for dinner at the head station, and that a Church of England clergyman visits there twice a month. I am only to pay a premium of £500 for the experience, and Mr Moneygrub says I'll be able to make that out of scalps in my spare time. He says there is a Government reward for scalps. I don't mind a brush with the savages, but if he thinks I'm going to scalp my enemies he is mistaken. Anyhow, I sail next week, so no more from yours, outward bound,

Joscelyn de Greene.

No. 2 Letter from Moneygrub and Co., London, to the manager of the company's

Drybone station, Paroo River, Australia

Dear Sir,

We beg to advise you of having made arrangements to take a young gentleman named Greene as colonial experiencer, and he will be consigned to you by the next boat. His pre-mium is £500, and you will please deal with him in the usual way. Let us know when you have vacancies for any more colonial experiencers, as several are now asking about it, and the premiums are forthcoming. You are on no account to employ Union shearers this year; and you must cut expenses as low as you can. Would it not be feasible to work the station with the colonial experience men and Chinese labour? &c., &c., &c.

No. 3 Letter from Mr Robert Saltbush, of Frying Pan station, to a friend

Dear Billy,

Those fellows over at Drybone station have been at it again. You know it joins us, and old Moneygrub, who lives in London, sends out an English bloke every now and again to be a jackaroo. He gets £500 premium for each one, and the manager puts the jackaroo to boundary ride a tremendous great paddock at the back of the run, and he gives him a week's rations and tells him never to go through a gate, because so long as he only gets lost in the paddock he can always be found somehow, but if he gets out of the paddock, Lord knows whether he'd ever be seen again. And there these poor English devils are, riding round the fences and getting lost and not seeing a soul until they go near mad from loneliness; and then they run away at last, and old Macgregor, the manager, he makes a great fuss and goes after them with a whip, but he takes care to have a stockman pick their tracks up and take them to the nearest township, and then they go on the spree and never come back, and old Moneygrub collars the £500 and sends out another jackaroo. It's a great game. The last one they had was a fellow called Greene. They had him at the head station for a while, letting him get pitched off the station horses. He said: "They're awfully beastly horses in this country, by Jove; they're not content with throwing you off, but they'd kick you afterwards if you don't be careful." When they got full up of him at the head station they sent him out to the big paddock to an old hut full of fleas, and left him there with his tucker and two old screws of horses. The horses, of course, gave him the slip, and he got lost for two days looking for them, and his meat was gone bad when he got home. He killed a sheep for tucker, and how do you think he killed it? He shot it! It was a ram, too, one of Moneygrub's best rams, and there will be the deuce to pay when they find out. About the fourth day a swagman turned up, and he gave the swaggie a gold watch chain to show him the way to the nearest town, and he is there now--on the spree, I believe. He had a fine throat for whisky, anyhow, and the hot climate has started him in earnest. Before he left the hut and the fleas, he got a piece of raddle and wrote on the door: "Hell. S.R.O.", whatever that means. I think it must be some sort of joke. The brown colt I got from Ginger is a clinker, a terror to kick, but real fast. He takes a lot of rubbing out for half a mile, &c., &c., &c.

No. 4 Letter from Sandy Macgregor, manager of Drybone station, to Messrs Moneygrub & Co., London

Dear Sirs,

I regret to have to inform you that the young gentleman, Mr Greene, whom you sent out, has seen fit to leave his employment and go away to the township. No doubt he found the work somewhat rougher than he had been used to, but if young gentlemen are sent out here to get experience they must expect to rough it like other bushmen. I hope you will notify his friends of the fact: and if you have applications for any more colonial experiencers we now have a vacancy for one. There is great trouble this year over the shearing, and a lot of grass will be burnt unless some settlement is arrived at. &c., &c., &c.

No. 5 Extract from evidence of Senior Constable Rafferty, taken at an inquest before Lushington, P.M. for the North-east by South Paroo district, and a jury

I am a senior constable, stationed at Walloopna beyant. On the 5th instant, I received information that a man was in the horrors at Flanagan's hotel. I went down and saw the man, whom I recognise as the deceased. He was in the horrors: he was very bad. He had taken all his clothes off, and was hiding in a fowl house to get away from the devils which were after him. I went to arrest him, but he avoided me, and escaped over a paling fence on to the Queensland side of the border, where I had no power to arrest him. He was foaming at the mouth and acting like a madman. He had been on the spree for several days. From enquiries made, I believe his name to be Greene, and that he had lately left the employment of Mr Macgregor, at Drybone. He was found dead on the roadside by the carriers coming into Walloopna. He had evidently wandered away from the township, and died from the effects of the sun and the drink.

Verdict of jury: "That deceased came to his death by sunstroke and exposure during a fit of delirium tremens caused by excessive drinking. No blame attached to anybody." Curator of intestate estates advertises for next of kin of J. Greene, and nobody comes forward. Curtain!

The Bulletin, 5 September 1891