Running the Cutter
Running the Cutter
"Running the cutter", i.e. buying beer in billy-cans and drinking the beer outside the hotel, was an old custom practised by Mount Morgan miners from c.1900 - 1918. The Billy-can (tin billy) was known as the "cutter".
There were several versions of "running the cutter". When a miner finished his work at the end of the shift he would have a young lad run over to a hotel with his tea-billy, have it filled with beer and brought back to him as he came off shift.
Another version was the miners, at the end of each shift, going to their favourite hotel, have their billy-cans (tea-billies) filled with beer, probably at a slightly reduced price, then retiring to the hotel yard or back lane, there to sit on a log provided, to drink their beer and yarn. The billy-can would be filled more than once before the drinker decided to go home. The lane behind the School of Arts which runs from behind the Grand Hotel to West Street, was known as Cutters Lane, because drinkers from both the Grand Hotel and the Imperial Hotel (which was on the mine side of the School of Arts and was later burnt down) would assemble in the lane to drink their beer from their billy-cans.
Yet another version of Running the Cutter was brought about by a drinker who wished to go straight home from work or a wife who objected to her husband coming home late for meals. The wife would send one of their children to the hotel for a billy-can of beer and have it waiting for the husband when he arrived home from work. A tall tale was often told of a father who found a tadpole in his beer, Young Willie having taken a few swigs of beer out of the billy-can on his way home and topped it up with water out of a water hole in the river.
Apparently rising costs caused the Publicans to put an end to the custom of Running the Cutter.
There was no refrigeration in those days and beer, served at cellar temperatures, would often froth up, giving a good-sized head or "collar" on the beer. To prevent frothing, the drinker would rub cheese over the bottom and sides of the billy-cans thus ensuring a full billy of beer.
The origin of the word cutter is believed to have derived from the term "cutting" the dust from the throat with a drink after a hard day's work at the mine.
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Mount Morgan Promotion & Development Inc.
61 Morgan Street, Mount Morgan Qld 4714
Phone: 4938 2333 Fax: 4938 2309
Email: mmpad@bigpond.com"