"The Union Buries Its Dead" is a well-known sketch story by iconic Australian writer and poet Henry Lawson. It was originally published in Truth on 16 April 1893 with the title: "The Union Buries Its Dead : A Bushman's Funeral. A Sketch from Life".[1]
The story takes place in Bourke, and concerns the burial of an anonymous union labourer, who had drowned the previous day "while trying to swim some horses across a billabong of the Darling." The narrator, possibly Lawson himself, examines the level of respect the Bushfolk have for the dead, supplementing the story with his trademark dry, sardonic humour.