OH! the shearing is all over,
CHORUS
So it’s roll up your blankets,
Now, I’ve saved up a good cheque,
Oh! we’ll live like fighting cocks,
Oh! yes, of beef and damper
Oh! we’ll have plenty girls,
Now we’ll stop all immigration,
Oh! it’s time I had an answer,
Oh! to tell a lot of lies, |
“Calling at the depôt to get an offsider.”—Female immigrants were housed at the depôt on arrival, and many found husbands within a few hours of their landing. The minstrel, therefore, proposes to call at the depôt to get himself a wife from among the immigrants. An offsider is a bullock-drivers assistant—one who walks on the off-side of the team and flogs the bullocks on that side when occasion arises. The word afterwards came to mean an assistant of any kind.
“Jack Robertson.”—Sir John Robertson, as he afterwards became, was a well-known politician, who believed in Australians doing their best to populate their own country.
“Budgery you”—good fellow you.
The Old Bush Songs - Contents | Paddy’s Letter, 1857