1861. T. McCombie, `Australian Sketches,' p. 135:
«A claim without gold is termed a `shicer.'»
1861. Mrs. Meredith, `Over the Straits,' c. ix. p. 256:
«It's a long sight better nor bottoming a shicer.»
1863. `Victorian Hansard,' May 10, vol. ix. p. 571:
«Mr. Howard asked whether the member for Collingwood knewthe meaning of the word `shicer.' Mr. Don replied in theaffirmative. He was not an exquisite, like the hon. member(laughter), and he had worked on the goldfields, and he hadalways understood a shicer to be a hole with no gold.»
1870. S. Lemaitre, `Songs of Goldfields,' p. 15:
«Remember when you first came up
Like shicers, innocent of gold.»
1894. `The Argus,' March 10, p. 4, col. 7:
«There are plenty of creeks in this country that have only sofar been scratched – – a hole sunk here and there and abandoned.No luck, no perseverance; and so the place has been set down asa duffer, or, as the old diggers' more expressive term had it,a `shicer.'»
1896. Modern:
«Don't take his bet, he's a regular shicer.»