THE country was full of educated men, perhaps reading Greek and Latin for pleasure, while they held jobs as shepherds or sawyers. Early New Zealand had few opportunities for educated men with­out capital, though lawyers abounded. But there was a good chance for a man to save enough from his wages to begin farming on his own account— always provided he kept a tight hold on himself.

A feature of life on the domains of the 'shepherd kings,' as they were ironically called, was the un­thinking recklessness of the employees, let loose for their annual holiday with a cheque for their year's wages, in ' knocking down' their earnings at the nearest hotel. But the shepherds and perman­ent employees generally were a different type from the casual farm labourer. Their solitary lives often made them men of strong character, who found greater pleasure in heavy reading than in heavy drinking.

The least responsible element in rural society was the wandering labourer. He might be a trades­man in search of work. He might simply be a tramp, a ' swagger,' claiming the traditional hospitality of the back-country—a privilege often abused, since it was customary for the passer-by to raid the larder of any shepherd's hut whether the shepherd were at home or not. Shearers were the wildest of these nomads. They had their own manliness and independence and some curious customs of their own. They were fond of reciting purple passages from popular literature and of competing in ' capping yarns,' that is, telling a taller or a more horrible story than the last man's.

Rural society suffered from the absence of women. The squatter was possibly married, but few employers encouraged their employees to take wives or built houses for them when they did. This undoubtedly made station life more crude and uncomfortable than it need have been.