the
confines of a colony or estate which have not yet become any
person's private property. By the natural increase of their
flocks and herds, many of these squatters have enriched
themselves; and having been allowed to enjoy the advantages of
as much pasture as they wanted in the bush, without paying any
rent for it to the government, they have removed elsewhere when
the spot was sold, and have not unfrequently gained enough to
purchase that or some other property. Thus . . . the squatter
has been converted into a respectable settler. But this is too
bright a picture to form an average specimen. . . .
Unfortunately, many of these squatters have been persons
originally of depraved and lawless habits, and they have made
their residence at the very outskirts of civilization a means
of carrying on all manner of mischief. Or sometimes they
choose spots of waste land near a high road . . . there the
squatters knock up what is called a `hut.' In such places
stolen goods are easily disposed of, spirits and tobacco are
procured in return."

Ibid. p. 334:

"The rich proprietors have a great aversion to the class of
squatters, and not unreasonably, yet they are thus, many of
them, squatters themselves, only on a much larger scale. . ."

1846. J. L. Stokes, `Discoveries in Australia,'
vol. i. c. ix. p. 260:

"This capital of Australia Felix had for a long time been
known to some squatters from Tasmania."

1846. T. H. Braim, `History of New South Wales,'
vol. i. p. 235:

"A set of men who were to be found upon the borders of every
large estate, and who were known by the name of squatters.
These were ticket-of-leave holders, or freedmen who erected a
but on waste land near a great public road, or on the outskirts
of an estate."

1897. Australian Steam Navigation Company, `Guide Book,'
p. 29:

"Nowaday squatters may be interested and possibly shocked on
learning that in March, 1836, a petition was being largely
signed for the prevention of `squatting, through which so much
crime was daily occurring,' inasmuch as `squatting' was but
another term for sly grog selling, receiving stolen property,
and harbouring bushrangers and assigned servants. The term
`squatter,' as applied to the class it now designates--without
which where would Australia now be?--was not in vogue till
1842."

(2) A pastoral tenant of the Crown, often renting from the
Crown vast tracts of land for pasturage at an almost nominal
sum. The