• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture

Heritage, history, and heroes; literature, legends, and larrikins

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Biographies
  • Books
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry & songs
    • Recommended poetry
    • Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
    • Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
    • Rock music and pop music [videos]
    • Early music [videos]
  • Slang
  • Timeline
    • Timeline of Australian history and culture
    • Calendar of Australian history and culture
    • Significant events and commemorative dates
  • Topics

Fifty-Six and Eighty-Six [poem, The Bulletin, 21 August 1886]

14 May 2017 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem appeared in the “Pepper and salt” column published in The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 21 August 1886.]

[Fifty-Six and Eighty-Six]

The “social purity” maggot is eating away the heart of Ballarat. The local Crookses and Walkers have discovered that gambling is carried on in private houses. A parson has been writing to the papers on that congenial clerical topic — immorality. Two old maids, talking scandal at a street corner, distinctly heard a young man make use of a gigantic D. As the result of all this, the worthy city mayor was reluctantly compelled to call a public meeting “to see what was best to be done.” Ye gods! If spirits were permitted to walk this earth, there must certainly have been ructions at that Ballarat meeting. Shades of indignant dead “identities” would have carried the platform by assault and pelted the speakers with tombstones. Wethinks they are hovering around us as we sing:—

FIFTY-SIX AND EIGHTY-SIX.

In the Ballarat of old,
When the diggers, strong and bold,
Threw up shining chunks of gold
Out of holes,
With pick and spade they wrought
All the day, as Britons ought —
But they never gave a thought
To their souls.

They’d a code of morals then,
Had those sturdy digger men —
Dick, Jack, and Bill, and Ben —
Of a kind;
A ready code, and rough,
But it did ’em well enough
(They were made of sterling stuff,
Bear in mind).

Deuce a bit did diggers care
For the incidental “swear,”
Of a comrade who was “square” in his deals;
And they deemed it out of place
If a fellow had the face
To interpolate a “grace”
At his meals.

Ben, Dick, and Bill, and Jack
Shuffled each a euchre pack
(Somewhat greasy at the back),
Every night;
And, if fortune proved unkind,
Well, they really didn’t mind,
For another lucky find
Put ’em right.

No distinctions then of rank,
As they played, and swore, and drank
In a manner free and frank,
To be sure;
Ah! a happy, cheery lot,
Never caring, e’er a jot,
If their fellow-man was not
Very “pure.”

* * * * * * *

But the modern Ballarat,
It is different to that,
Many parsons smug and fat
There abound;
While the diggers, strong and bold,
Of the roaring days of old —
A lot of them lie cold
In the ground.

There is humbug in the air;
Chadband offers up a prayer
For the naughty boys who swear,
Drink, and dice;
It isn’t safe to “shout”
A whisky or a stout —
Someone’s foxing round about
After vice.

Oh! the jolly days of yore,
And the diggers gone before,
We shall never see them more —
No, bedad! They have gone and given place
To another time and race,
Which are (pardon our grimace)
Twice as bad.



Source:
The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 21 August 1886, p. 15 (column 2)

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: morality, poem, publication The Bulletin (Sydney), SourceNLA, year1886

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, Kangaroo, Wattle, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

Search this site

Featured books

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, by Banjo Paterson A Book for Kids, by C. J. Dennis  The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from The Bulletin The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, by C. J. Dennis The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, by J. J. Kenneally The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen The Australian Crisis, by C. H. Kirmess Such Is Life, by Joseph Furphy
More books (full text)

Featured lists

Timeline of Australian history and culture
A list of significant Australiana
Significant events and commemorative dates
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian literature
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Australian explorers
Topics
Links

Featured posts

Advance Australia Fair: How the song became the Australian national anthem
Brian Cadd [music videos and biography]
Ned Kelly: Australian bushranger
Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Some Australian authors

E. J. Brady
John Le Gay Brereton
C. J. Dennis
Mary Hannay Foott
Joseph Furphy
Mary Gilmore
Charles Harpur
Grant Hervey
Lucy Everett Homfray
Rex Ingamells
Henry Kendall
“Kookaburra”
Henry Lawson
Jack Moses
“Dryblower” Murphy
John Shaw Neilson
John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan)
“Banjo” Paterson
Marie E. J. Pitt
A. G. Stephens
P. R. Stephensen
Agnes L. Storrie (Agnes L. Kettlewell)

Recent Posts

  • A billabong: Goulbourn River [postcard, 27 November 1907]
  • Dear Mac [postcard, early 20th Century]
  • The New to the Old [poem by Randolph Bedford, 3 January 1896]
  • New Year greetings [postcard, early 20th Century]
  • New Year greetings [postcard, early 20th Century]

Top Posts & Pages

  • Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]
  • Australian slang
  • Timeline of Australian history and culture
  • Click Go the Shears [folk music, lyrics; traditional Australian song, 1890s]
  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]

Archives

Categories

Posts of note

The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
A Book for Kids [by C. J. Dennis, 1921]
Click Go the Shears [traditional Australian song, 1890s]
Core of My Heart [“My Country”, poem by Dorothea Mackellar, 24 October 1908]
Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
Nationality [poem by Mary Gilmore, 12 May 1942]
The Newcastle song [music video, sung by Bob Hudson]
No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest [poem by Mary Gilmore, 29 June 1940]
Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
Shooting the moon [short story by Henry Lawson]

Recent Comments

  • Annie Crestani on Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]
  • Peter Pearsall on The Clarence [poem by Jack Moses]
  • Trevor Hurst on Timeline of Australian history and culture
  • Ju on Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]
  • David Carroll on Queensland [poem by Philip Durham Lorimer]

For Australia

Copyright © 2023 · Log in