speed which they will attain in a few days, when in full practice and
training. Their nerve, 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