be so bad in spite of the many parties of convicts employed upon them, but to provide occupation for the men at a distance from the temptations of the towns was naturally the prime object with the Government, whilst the state of the highways was a secondary consideration to the colonists who undertook the Government contracts, compared with the ready-money which was received for feeding the men.[1]
The persons on whom at that time the direction both of the making and repairing of the roads chiefly, if not entirely, devolved were the warders, (I remember a bandmaster having the charge of a road party,) whose opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of the business had been probably about equal to those of the pickpockets for whom they laid out the work. The principle on which the roads were mended was to spend a great number of months on one spot, improving a tract of two or three miles, and then to remove the men to a distance, it may be of twenty, leaving the improved bit as an oasis that allowed the driver of a dog-cart the luxury of half an hour's fast trotting. In a few months' time the oasis would present a spectacle far worse than if it had never been meddled with, and at every hundred yards or oftener the dog-cart would have to make a fresh track for itself amongst the trees that grew alongside the so-called thoroughfare. I may make an exception, however, in favour of an application of wooden pavement by means of which the old sandy fur-
- ↑ Since our return to England the management of the roads has been placed upon an entirely new system. A "road-board" is now formed in each district, consisting of the principal inhabitants; a certain amount of convict labour is placed at its disposal by the Government, and the control over the highways is lodged in its hands.
