Page:The three colonies of Australia.djvu/182

SIR GEORGE AND THE GIBBET.

ON THE GOVERNOR'S BEING PRESENT AT A REHEARSAL OF THE NEW DROP AT WOOLLOMOOLOO GAOL, FEB. 3, 1845.

Pervading Gipps! whose penetrating soul
The least o'erlooks, the mightiest can control;
Now drowning towns, now decimating quills,
Now taxing provinces, now taxing bills;
Or when thy jaded spirit seeks for ease,
And e'en misgovernment has ceased to please,
Just acting o'er to dissipate thy gloom,
The dread rehearsal of a felon's doom!

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THE GUNDAGAI FLOOD.

In 1844 the colony was visited by severe floods. The water was from four to five feet deep in the township of Gundagai, which had been laid out and sold in building lots by the government sometime previously. The Commissioner of Crown Lands, in the district, addressed a letter to the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Deas Thomson, suggesting that, "in consequence of the late floods, it would be highly essential to the future welfare of the township of Gundagai to have part of the township laid out on the south bank of the Murrumbidgee River, on moderately high ground, well adapted for building, giving the parties who have now allotments in the recently-flooded land others on the high land." The suggestion of the Crown Commissioner as to laying out allotments was adopted; but in conveying this information Mr. Thomson adds:—"His Excellency further directs me to inform you that he cannot sanction the proposed exchange of the flooded allotments, as he considers that what a man buys he buys for better or worse."^[1]

Ye watermen of Gundagai
Who're grounded in the mud,
Whose huts, not quite triumphantly,
Have battled with the flood;
Your new allotments haste to buy,
And pay for, ere you go,
For the old ones are all gone
To the settlements below.
 
New Holland lacks much water
Her flocks and herds to keep;
Your streets are little rivulets,
Your homes are in the deep.
With punts, canoes, and jolly boats,
From hut to hut ye go:
As ye swim with the stream
To the settlements below.
 
Your wives and children's drowning cries
Shall rise in every shower;
They swam their last at Gundagai,
In that ill-omened hour;
And as the auction-hammer fell
To "gone," why 'twas a "go:"
For you float in your boats
O'er the settlements below.
 
Then Gundagai, then Gundagai,
Be liberal with your purse,
Again your town allotments buy
"For better and for worse;"
And if, as further still you wend,
To lands still worse you go,
Gipps will still stand your friend
In the settlements below.

1. In consequence of this decision, a hundred people were drowned in this same township in 1851.