[Editor: This song was published in the “On the Track” section in The Northern Miner (Charters Towers, Qld.), 26 September 1938. The song mentions the Miner’s Right.]
A Miner’s Song.
My Miner’s Right is numbered nine one nine,
And my tent is an eight by ten;
I camp on my claim near a crystal stream
At the foot of a bushland glen;
Two pine trees stand like sentries tall,
On guard o’er my lone domain,
Where I wake at dawn when the bush-bird’s call
Fills the glen with a glad refrain.
I sing a song, a happy song, for a miner free am I,
I know no master, nor bow my knee to any but God on high,
I merrily toil when I strike the wash where the golden nuggets lie,
And I sing a song, a happy song, for a miner free am I.
When my shammy’s filled with golden grains,
And the summer rains come down,
I will leave my camp and take a trip
To the lights of Sydney town,
Where I’ll sport a while by the ocean wave
Till I hear the call again
Of the gold, and the birds, and my miner’s camp
At the foot of a bushland glen.
“DALCASSIAN.”
Charters Towers.
Source:
The Northern Miner (Charters Towers, Qld.), 26 September 1938, p. 4
Also published in:
The Townsville Daily Bulletin (Townsville, Qld.), 29 September 1938, p. 5
Editor’s notes:
miner’s right = a mining license; miner’s rights were first issued in Victoria in 1855, replacing the earlier gold licenses (which were introduced in 1851), and gave their holders a range of legal and political rights (the other Australian colonies subsequently followed the Victorian system)
See: 1) “Miner’s Right”, Eurekapedia
2) “Miner’s Right”, Wikipedia
o’er = (archaic) over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)
shammy = (also spelt “shammie”) a shammy bag, made from chamois leather; from the slang spelling of chamois (a soft leather made from the skin of the chamois, a goat-like animal from Europe and western Asia, or made from goat skin or sheepskin; may also refer to a cotton fabric made in imitation of chamois leather)
See: 1) David G. Falk, “Big Higgs’s reformation”, The Australasian, (Melbourne, Vic.), 10 July 1886, p. 91
2) Ethelstane Stanley, “A reminiscence of the Palmer”, Queensland Figaro and Punch, (Brisbane, Qld.), 9 March 1889, p. 393
3) “Treasures of tooloom”, The Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, (Bathurst, NSW), 1 July 1891, p. 2
Leave a Reply