1893. `The Herald' (Melbourne), Jan. 25:
"Under the electric light in the quadrangle of the Exhibition they will give tableaux, representing the murder of a swagman by a native and the shooting of the criminal by a black tracker."
1897. `The Argus,' Jan. 11, p. 7, col. 2:
"The Yarra has claimed many swagman in the end, but not all have died in full travelling costume . . . a typical back-blocks traveller. He was grey and grizzled, but well fed, and he wore a Cardigan jacket, brown moleskin trousers, blucher boots, and socks, all of which were mended with rough patches. His knife and tobacco, his odds and ends, and his purse, containing 14 1/2d., were still intact, while across his shoulder was a swag, and the fingers of his right hand had tightly closed round the handle of his old black billy-can, in which were some scraps of meat wrapped in a newspaper of the 5th inst. He had taken with him his old companions of the roads—his billy and his swag."
<hw>Swagsman</hw>, <i>n</i>. a variant of <i>Swagman</i> (q.v.).
1879 J. Brunton Stephens, `Drought and Doctrine' (Works, p. 309):
"Rememberin' the needful, I gets up an' quietly slips
To the porch to see—a swagsman—with our bottle at his lips."
1880. G. Sutherland, `Tales of Goldfields,' p. 89:
"One of these prospecting swagsmen was journeying towards
Maryborough."
1882. A. J. Boyd, `Old Colonials,' p. 111: