The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-01-03
BUSHMAN AND MILLIONAIRE
DE-1TH OF THE VE44 ATHEIST AND 4 CH1R1 CTERISTIC 4 USTRALIAN.

Curious Human Document-Jame
 Tyson's Life Epitomizes Australia.
 Development-His Struggles, Odditie.
 and Romantic Affection.
 whose death was reported from Sydney
 few days ago, Australia has lost a
 remarkable personality and a citizer
 whose career was so typical in some of
 it's leading characteristics as almost tc
 epitomize in itself the history of the
 pastoral industry in Australia. MT. Ty-
 son was as lad, and remained to the
 end of his life. bushman pure and
 simple. Though he accumulated great
 wealth he recognized none of the or
 dlnary civilized uses of money, but
 maintained throughout his career the
 frugal habits of the beginning, working
 no less continuously at seventy than
 he had worked at seventeen, wearing
 habitually shabby suit of ready made
 clothes, with silver watch, of which a bootlace formed the guard, and eating
 only the same hard fare that had
 served him when, as a young laborer, I he took the position of Heading scythe"
 on the station of two brothers of the
 name of Vine. His life was lived ill the
 open air. and as a man of over seventy
 years of age he was able to say of him.
 self that he had never entered a church,
 or a theater, or public house, that he
 had never tasted beer, wine nor spir-
 it's, that he had never sworn, and that 1 he had never washed with soap-he
 used sand instead nor worn a white
 shirt or a glove. He was of splendid,
 though somewhat spare and hard, phy- sique and at seventeen stood feet 4 | inches in his stockings. His figure, as
 known more familiarly of late years, was that of squares -shouldered, slight
 ly stopping, but active man, with a 1 keen face set below a crop of iron-g
 hair. and distinguished by particularly bright, deep-set gray eyes.
 He was born in Australia in 1922. his father being a Cumberland man of re- puted Flemish or Belgian descent, and his mother an Englishwoman of the name of Coates. MT Tyson was inter ested toward the end of his life to learn that the translation of his French name was "Irebrand," and observed thought fully: Maybe I could have set the world on fire a bit, too if I had tried" But his energies were directed from the beginning into a totally different chan nel. He was essentially a man of peace. The most offensive weapon that he was ever known to have carried was the scythe, and he himself attributed his success in the world to the simple fact that having begun life as mower, he "nowed longer and stronger than other men,"
 His first experience of earning his own bread outside the family circle be- gan when he was seventeen, and lasted for two years and a half, during which time he received wages at the rate of ESQ year. The position of leading scythe involved work too heavy for SO young a man. His fellow -laborers were jealous of seeing him in the post of foreman, and to the end of his life he would tell with the keenness of a we'll remembered battle how, through three moving seasons, they tried to "cut him out by taking a short swath, but he being tall and strong, was able to take HIS Iull SWdlH anu Stlii httD etItiu Such pastoral contests were of course, long before the days of improved ma chinery. At the end of two years and a half, with the loyal assistance. which he never forgot to mention, Of the wid- owed mother who made and mended for him, he had saved e60. His next step was to cattle station where, in a remote district of the then little known interior he lived absolutely alone herding bullocks. and in con stnt danger of his life from the black men still unaccustomed to white oc- cupation of the country. On this sta tion he remained for a year and half, working again very had, and saved G36. With the e96 thus carefully ae- cumulated he proposed to set up with his brother on a cattle station of his own, but at this juncture the bank in which he had deposited his first e6O failed and, though he was repaid DOT ton of the money, he had again to work for wages.
 Once more he saved till having &C., cumulated G100, he was able to carry out his project and established himself with his brother on station on the 3llybong river, in the back country of New South Wales. He had not yet sur his early misfortunes, for here n their first year they were overtakcn )y draught and all their newly pur- chased cattle died. He received at this lime an offer to take charge of some .attle on a system known as ''thirds"-- hat is, the risk to the owner and a hird of the increase to the caretaker. t was necessary to have some money or first expenses. and in his extremity le remembered that Sir John Hay, for whom he had a year or two previously lriven cattle, owed him 95. He knew nly with regard to Sir John Hay that le lived somewhere on the Murray riv- r, at distance of about 200 miles. The lying between the Murray and was practically track lesss, ut deciding that, if he followed the tributaries of the Billybong into the iViding range, the streams flowing {, own the other side of the hills must {. ring him to the Murray, he started on orseback to endeavCr to find his debt ! f. He had exactly 1s and he took it yith him together with some food The Iay proved longer than he had expect . d. fter day or two his food was fin shed, and for three days he kept him : elf alive by plucking handfuls of the i, Weet grass and chewing it as he went