a tramp who takes care to arriveat a station at sundown, so that he shall be provided with` tucker' (q.v.) at the squatter's cost: one of those whogo about the country seeking work and devoutly hoping they maynot find it.
1880. G.
« The Sundowner.»
1888. D. Macdonald, `Gum Boughs,' p. 32:
«When the real `sundowner' haunts these banks for a season, heis content with a black pannikin, a clasp knife, and a platterwhittled out of primaeval bark.»
1890. `The Argus,' Sept. 20, p. 13, col. 5:
«Sundowners are still the plague of squatocracy, their petitionfor `rashons' and a bed amounting to a demand.»
1891. F. Adams, `John Webb's End,' p. 34:
«`Swagsmen' too, genuine, or only `sundowners,' – – men who loafabout till sunset, and then come in with the demand for theunrefusable `rations.'»
1892. `Scribner's Magazine,' Feb., p. 143:
«They swell the noble army of swagmen or sundowners, who arechiefly the fearful human wrecks which the ebbing tide ofmining industry has left stranded in Australia.»
[This writer does not differentiate between Swagman (q.v.) and Sundowner.]
1893. `Sydney Morning Herald,' Aug. 12, p. 8, col. 7:
«Numbers of men who came to be known by the class name of`sundowners,' from their habit of straggling up at fall ofevening with the stereotyped appeal for work; and work being atthat hour impossible, they were sent to the travellers' hut forshelter and to the storekeeper or cook for the pannikin offlour, the bit of mutton, the sufficiency of tea for a brew,which made up a ration.»
1896. `Windsor Magazine,' Dec., p. 132:
«`Here,' he remarked, `is a capital picture of a Queenslandsundowner.' The picture represented a solitary figure standingin pathetic isolation on a boundless plain. `A sundowner?' Iqueried. `Yes; the lowest class of nomad. For days they willtramp across the plains carrying, you see, their supply ofwater. They approach a station only at sunset, hence the name.At that hour they know they will not be turned away.' `Do theytake a day's work?' `Not they! There is an old bush saying,that the sundowner's one request is for work, and his oneprayer is that be may not find it.'»