{"id":9717,"date":"2017-10-02T09:37:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-01T22:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=9717"},"modified":"2018-05-27T15:27:37","modified_gmt":"2018-05-27T05:27:37","slug":"46-great-opening-lines-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=9717","title":{"rendered":"46 Great Opening Lines: 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least two hundred poor beggars were counted sleeping out on the pavements of the main streets of Sydney the other night – grotesque bundles of rags lying under the verandahs of the old Fruit Markets and York-street shops, with their heads to the wall and their feet to the gutter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

‘Dossing Out’ and ‘Camping’<\/em>, Henry Lawson, 1896<\/p>\n

The economic recession and strikes of the early 1890s forced a lot of Australia’s country people off the land and into urban areas, only to find there were no jobs there either. ‘Dossing Out’ and ‘Camping’<\/em> is a short story that paints a clear picture of the poverty of poor beggars who had been sleeping in the park but were driven out by rain, onto the streets, under the verandahs.<\/p>\n

The title refers to ‘dossing out’ in the city and ‘camping’ in the bush, two different ways of living with no money. In the bush, Lawson writes, you can light a fire, boil the billy, make tea, catch a sheep and fry a chop, wash your shirt, wash yourself, whistle and sing by the camp fire, breathe fresh air and make poetry.<\/p>\n

\"\"
George Washington Lambert, ‘Sheoak Sam’, 1898<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the city, when you doss out, there’s no possibility of lighting a fire to cook over. And a man is generally too hungry to make poetry.<\/p>\n

The story ironically appeared in the collection While the Billy Boils.<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least two hundred poor beggars were counted sleeping out on the pavements of the main streets of Sydney the other night – grotesque bundles of rags lying under the verandahs of the old Fruit Markets and York-street shops, with their heads to the wall and their feet to the gutter. ‘Dossing Out’ and ‘Camping’, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “46 Great Opening Lines: 4”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1088,43],"tags":[1101,241,26,1187,1241,1102,503,2,246,1103,270],"class_list":["post-9717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-46-great-opening-lines","category-art-not-wwii","tag-dossing-out-and-camping","tag-19th-century-literature","tag-art","tag-australian-literature","tag-australian-writing","tag-george-washington-lambert","tag-henry-lawson","tag-literature","tag-opening-lines","tag-sheoak-sam","tag-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9717"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10839,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9717\/revisions\/10839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}