Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/37

 on the treasury for about £60,000 more; while Port Phillip has not only never received one farthing of government money, but, as I shall show, has not even had the advantage of the expenditure of her own revenue, a great part of which, on the contrary, has been applied to objects in which she is in no wise interested.

The new export of tallow is one which has been forced on the attention of the flockmasters of New South Wales, by the necessity of finding some outlet for their surplus stock, and it is one likely to produce very important results. The mode adopted is this: A man selects a number of old ewes from his flock, say five hundred, and, if necessary, fattens them for some time. These ewes, when in good condition, are driven to one of the boiling-down establishments; they are there slaughtered, and cut up into pieces of a convenient size; the bones are broken, and the whole packed closely in a wooden boiler, strongly clamped with iron: the hind legs being, however, reserved for a different use. Steam is then let on, by a pipe constructed for the purpose, and after a few hours the tallow is run off into casks, through another pipe leading from the bottom of the boiler. The refuse which remains in the boiler is then placed in a screw-press, and subjected to a high pressure, until all the tallow has been squeezed out; this is then put into an iron boiler, and refined previous to being put into casks. The wool is stripped off the skins, washed,