WESTERN QUEENSLAND'S MOST POPULAR PARSON

Picturesque Methods Of The Rev. Hulton-Sams

I remember as though it was yester day the first time I met the Rev. Hulton-Sams, known far and wide through out Queensland as the 'Fighting Parson.'

Two or us had just returned from hobbling out our horses at the back of a small wayside hotel. The township, if such it could be called, was to hold its annual race meeting next day, and already stockmen and others had come from near and far to see the sport on the morrow. As was usual at these outback outposts it was a case of 'Hail fellow! Well met,' and although my mate and I were complete strangers to the district, it was not long before we became on friendly terms with most of those present.

After the evening meal someone started to thump away on the piano the hotel boasted, and in a few minutes word was passed round that a concert would be held. The Rev. Hulton-Sams, a little light weight with fair hair, was busily engaged asking all and sundry to contribute some item to the night's fun. He was accompanied in his search for talent by a lady visitor from a station in the neighborhood. Most of us laughed and apologised for not being able to help with the programme, but anyone who could sing or recite at all told the parson to put his name down.

I was standing talking to a station manager, when the parson and the lady came and asked a big uncouth fellow if he would do a turn. More or less intoxicated, the fellow became abusive, and not only insulted the Rev. Hulton Sams, but also the lady by using bad language. Quickly the station manager and I intervened, while the parson hurried away with the lady.

When the station manager remonstrated with the disturber of the peace for using the bad language he did, the fellow became abusive, and made some very disparaging remarks about the 'Fighting Parson.' In the middle of his rantings, the parson appeared; and, without showing any undue heat, said that he would discuss matters with the big fellow before breakfast next morning.

Shortly after daylight next day, the parson took a glass of whisky into the room where the big fellow was sleeping, and, on awakening him, offered it to him. 'Drink this, my man,' he said, 'and then you'll apologise to me for your behavior of last night, or face me with the gloves or bare knuckles.' An oath and a glass thrown on the floor was the response.

Subsequent happenings need little telling. After having had a couple of drinks in the bar, the big fellow went looking for the parson. It was rather unfortunate for him that he found the latter, who was awaiting him with the set of gloves he always carried. The little parson, giving away easily six stone in weight, stung the big fellow to madness, and gave him what he had justly earned— a good hammering. But not until he had extracted a promise from his opponent to apologise to the lady for the language he had used in her presence the night previously, would the little parson let up.

Be it to the big fellow's credit, that, finding that he was hopelessly beaten, he acceded to the parson's request. Later the apology was made, and the big fellow also gave the little parson a donation for the Bush Brotherhood.

When the Great War broke out, the Rev Hulton-Sams resigned from the Bush Brotherhood to go home to enlist. At his final farewell at Longreach, all creeds were present to do honor to the 'Fighting Parson,' one of the most popular identities ever known in Western Queensland. When news came that he had been killed in action in France, many rough fellows in Queensland felt a lump in their throats. No man was ever more respected and admired than the little 'Fighting Parson.'— 'Old Timer.'

Lucky Joe

Early in the present century, Joe Blank and I were horse-breaking together in Western Queensland. At night Joe would talk of giving horse work up; his idea being to indulge in fossicking for gold. One day there came to the station where we were an old chap, whom Joe knew, and during their talk of old times, mention was made by the old fellow of the good opal being obtained out near Eromanga. Joe tried to persuade me to go with him to the opal fields, but, as mining was quite foreign to me, I refused. Soon afterwards, Joe left, his destination being the opal country.

It was many years before I saw Joe again, and my surprise was great when he told me that he owned some country and few thousand cattle. He told me the story of how he had struck it lucky. After leaving me, Joe had met some mates at a small, wayside hotel, where he had stayed until his money was exhausted. Feeling rather ashamed of himself, he set off, a sick and sorry man, for the destination originally intended. He had no money and very few rations, but ultimately he arrived at the field.

It was just on sundown when Joe rode by a camp, where two opal diggers were having their evening meal. Asked to tie his horses up and have something to eat, Joe readily complied. In the course of the meal, Joe spoke of trying his luck at opal mining, and straight away one of the miners said, as he pointed to a claim nearby, 'There's a shaft nearly bottomed. You can have it, as we're leaving tomorrow.' At first, Joe did not take the two miners seriously, but found next morning that the offer was genuine. Tired of digging without getting any stone, the two men had decided to turn opal gouging in, and when they left later that day they left behind, not only a claim, but tools and equipment for working it.

Unfortunately for the two miners, but luckily for Joe, the claim was abandoned two days too soon, for late on the second day of his operations Joe bottomed on good opal. From that claim he recovered nearly one thousand pounds' worth of opal, it was this lucky stroke that started him in the pastoral industry, and when last I saw him, Joe was well on the way to becoming quite a beef baron.— A.N.M.

Scatterbrain Dick

When the British army was re armed with the Martini-Henry rifle, the Government sold all the obsolete Enfield rifles at a few shillings each. Thousands of the weapons were sent to Australia, where they were eagerly bought by farmers, for they made very good muzzle-loading shot-guns, and had the great merit of being able to withstand the heaviest charge with out any fear of bursting. My father bought one, and great was the excitement when he handed it over to my brother and me.

'There,' he said, 'you've always wanted a gun of your own, and now you've got one. I'll keep you supplied with powder and shot. All you have to do is to keep those confounded cockatoos off the fruit trees and the kangaroos out of the crop!'

During the weeks which followed we fired the heavy old gun until our heads were ringing from the concussions and our shoulders were aching and bruised from the recoil. There was very little sport about our shooting; we preferred sitting shots, and fired at close range whenever possible. The murderous result of a charge of shot at close range led us to christen the old gun 'Scatterbrain Dick.'

There were times when we ran out of shot. When that happened we fired away all our marbles, all the small nails and bolt nuts we could find, and finally fell back on the little nodules of Ironstone which we raked up on ants' nests. Instead of using paper for wads, we hit upon the expedient of ramming the muzzle of the gun into the bark of a gum tree, cutting out a neat circle of green bark, which made an admirable wad. It had one drawback, however: if left in overnight the wad would rust into place, with the result that the gun would make a fearful kick when next fired. We got over this difficulty by resting the stock against the bark of a tree, under our arm, and then the tree took the recoil when we fired out the rusted-in charge.

My father went out one day and left his precious breech-loading shotgun in the verandah. We were forbidden to as much as lay a finger on the gun, but the temptation was too great. We grabbed it and some cartridges, then ran off to give the wallabies a bad time. But when we tried to load the gun we could not make the breech close properly. Finally my brother cried, 'I know what we'll do. Well put it across these two logs and sit on it. That'll make it shut, I bet.' It made it shut all right— and also made something go 'chunk' in the works. We gazed in speechless horror at the broken lock, then put the gun back where we had found it, and waited In fear and trembling for father's homecoming.

We had a lot of turkeys on the farm, running wild in a paddock and roosting in trees. When one was wanted for the pot my father would shoot it, as they were too wild to catch. As luck would have it, he decided to shoot one that night. From our hiding place in the hay-loft we watched him pick up his shotgun and discover that it had been put out of action; our hair almost stood on end as we listened to the threats and comments which followed. Then Dad saw our old muzzle-loader leaning against the wall and picked it up After trying the ramrod in the barrel to see if it was loaded, he took a tin of wheat and walked down to the turkey paddock, where he scattered the wheat and then stood back to wait for the turkeys to come up. We watched in fear and trembling, for one of those gum-bark wads, with a hefty charge of old iron, had been rusting in the barrel for days. Further, we had pushed a small nail into the lock, making the action hair-triggered, and it only needed the slightest touch to fire it facts of which Dad was blissfully unaware. We were too scared to call out and warn him; what we were dreading happened.

A fine big gobbler came strutting up and Dad went down on one knee to take aim, but the instant he rested his finger on the trigger the gun went off with a belch of fire and smoke. He missed the gobbler by yards and laid out two hens and a lot of half-grown chicks, while the recoil of the gun sent him flying. Dad rose to his feet, rubbing his bruised shoulder and cursing, then picked up a stick and put the wounded birds out of their misery.

He stood for a few moments looking at the cause of the trouble, then grabbed up the gun and strode in the direction of the blacksmith's shop. On the way he paused by a stump and knocked the stock off the gun with a single blow: when he reached the smithy we heard a sound similar to the accompaniment of the anvil chorus, which lasted for a long time. Then Dad came out again carrying the bent and flattened remains of the gun barrel and flung it into the Gawler river with one final, comprehensive parting curse. It was many a long day before he could see the humor of the business. I might add that we shared his feelings. — 'Bogaduck.'

Crusoes Of The Coast

A little more than twelve years ago, the steamer Excelsior was bound from Melbourne to Fremantle, carrying the usual coastal cargo. The voyage was uneventful until the craft reached a point not far from Forest, which the coast was notorious for its treacherous sandbanks, which shifted so rapidly from storm to storm that skippers preferred to navigate by the look of the water in preference to their charts. The helmsman was taking a steady trick at the wheel, and the captain was engaged in pricking off his position in the chart-house, when a slight scud appeared on the horizon. 'Dirty weather in sight, sir!' called the helmsman, and the captain emerged to view it.

Whatever he had to say on the subject was never heard, as the squall was on the ship before he had properly emerged from his retreat. For ten minutes the gale raged with the velocity of a tropical cyclone; the sea piled up to terrific heights, and everything movable on the decks went overboard. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the tornado whisked off towards the coast. The sea still ran high in its wake, plunging the vessel up and down like a cork. Suddenly she struck on one of the sandbanks, for so churned up was the surface that the lookout was unable to distinguish the discoloration he was watching for in shoal water.

For a few minutes things were worse than ever, as the seas rushed over the now immobile vessel. Then everything quietened down. It was then seen that the Excelsior was sitting bolt up right on a shoal, fifty feet from the nearest water in any direction, with nothing in sight, and the knowledge that they had run aground on the lowest ebb tide for the month.

The captain and his officers amused themselves by swearing hard and using their telescopes to look for a passing craft. The crew were determined to make better use of their time, and promptly went 'ashore,' by the simple process of dropping from the bulwarks. On the sandspit thousands of crabs, mussels, prawns and other sea-creatures were swarming in perfect security, and ten minutes' work sufficed to collect enough of them to give the crew a complete change of diet. Day after day passed in the same fashion, the sailors spending their spare time in fishing and hunting on their shoal.

For a full month neither smoke nor sail hove in sight, but eventually a passing vessel was hailed, and passed a tow-rope to the stranded Excelsior. By now the tide was making towards the spring, and the vessel quivered in her prison several hours each day when the spit was completely covered. Taking fullest advantage of this circumstance, both vessels raced with their screws flat out, and succeeded in getting the stranded vessel into deep water, where the line was cast off.

'How did you enjoy your holiday?' one of the sailors was afterwards asked. 'Best thing I ever struck,' was his answer, 'but there's a catch in every thing. Do you know, the whole time we were there the whole lot of us used to do nothing but sit and dream of a big feed of oysters, and there wasn't one within coo-ee!' — 'Fisher.'

State's 21st Birthday

In the year 1857 I was one of a number of children who were present at the annual Christmas party given by Mr. and Mrs. John Morphett at Cummins. When we broke up, Mr. Morphett collected a lot of us boys and led us down to the flat in front of what was then Government cottage, where the first settlers landed. Booths had been erected in readiness for the ceremony on the morrow to celebrate the coming of-age of the colony.

But when the morning come it was raining in torrents, and continued without a break till about 4 p.m. The banquet was a very moist one, and my mother told me that all the viands were afloat in their dishes. The ceremony of placing the tablet on the Bent Tree was postponed. However, in due course, that ceremony took place in fine weather. I remembered it quite well. When the Royal ensign was broken out on the flag staff there was great perturbation of spirit, as it got caught in the branches of the tree. I remember being awe struck at the beauty of the flag, as I had never seen it before, and very seldom since, for that matter. The tablet was duly installed. I had seen it at my home for some days previously, as it was in my father's care, he being Mayor of Glenelg that year. I was hardly allowed to look at it, much less touch it. I wonder if there are any others left who were present on that occasion. It Is vividly clear in my mind, as if it were only last week, instead of a life-time ago.— Harold S. R. Wright, Glenordy, Tasmania.

Real Life Stories Of South Australia (1936, November 19). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 16. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92349337