Spot his highly polished "topper," note his patter glib and proper, and the neatness 
   of his flogger, and his linen spick and span;
See the cable at his pocket, and the twenty-ounces locket, he's the model and the 
   picture of a Melbourne mining man.


He's a swell -- observe his bingey -- and there's nothing dull or dingy 'bout his 
   dainty patent-leathers and the di'monds in his shirt;
He's a clubman, and he gaily does the Block in numbers daily, he's a mining man who
   never moved a shovelful of dirt.


'Tis this party, 'cute and clever, whom admiring papers over love to speak of with
   effusion, as the speculator bold
Who has risked his time and treasure, and his comfort, in a measure, just to boom the
   drooping industry of burrowing for gold.


At a spread or christ'ning function, speakers dwell with warmth and unction on the
   enterprise and energy this "miner" doth display,
And each rapturous oration proves his benefited nation owes the gent. a debt of
   gratitude it never can defray.


Then the money he's invested gives the journals interested further chances to enlarge
   upon his virtue and renown,
And hurl curses at the workers, at the strikers and the "shirkers," whose actions tend 
   to raise his risks and keep his profits down.


Strange, they never speak at feeds or at their guzzles, of the deeds, or of the losses 
   of the men who've only work to throw away,
And the pluck that they exhibit, who are working on a "tribit" that has given barely 
   tucker for a twelve-month and a day.


Tom and Dick may work like asses in the water and the gases, whilst their babes are
   often hungry, and their wives grow weak and thin,
Then, suppose they chance to strike it, well, the company doesn't like it, and it
   bounces them on law-points which the bosses always win.


'Tain't the sweating men -- poor devils! -- down in stifling lower levels, getting
   loaded full of poison or the miner's pet disease,
That the rags feel interesting; life and limb are they investing, but the nation
   doesn't seem to owe a penny piece to these.


No, the mining man they bow to and the miner they kow-tow to is the mining man from
   Collins-street, who never gripped a drill,
And who wouldn't know the crosscuts from a handsaw, but, of course, cuts quite the
   fattest kind of figure as he swaggers on his skill.


He's the man who does the lying, and the selling, and the buying, and who raves about 
   his rights -- those rights he cherishes so well;
And who handles all the treasure, and enjoys abundant leisure -- his rewards for 
   having noodles on the bifurcated shell.


Let those gentlemen repining o'er the awful cost of mining, ask the gaudy Melbourne
   miner why this painful thing is thus,
And the party who announces that the cost of every ounce is so much greater than its
   value, go to him and riase a fuss.


He'd no great amount to start with, now quite cheerfully he'd part with many hundreds
   for the razzle his ambitious wife is giving;
And below, in stopes and faces, scores of workers take thei rplaces to provide this 
   gilded loafer with a poor excuse for living.

"Edward Dyson"
The Bulletin, 3 September 1892, p24