AT BAY IN THE BUSH.
"Doctor Bronson asked him to explain this, which he did.
"'The prosperity,' he continued, 'was due to several causes. In the first place, the Government sent its convicts here, and it maintained a large military and police force to take care of them. This meant an expenditure of money; the annual outlay of the Government in Tasmania was £350,000, and of course we lost this when transportation stopped. Then, too, the free colonists that came out here received grants of land, and also assignments of convicts to work the land, the size of the grants being proportioned to the number of convicts that a colonist would receive.
"'It was a good thing for the squatter, and he was not slow to take advantage of it. It was like negro slavery, with the addition that the slaves cost nothing to the owner. If a man died, the squatter could get another for nothing; if a man ran away, he was generally recaptured at once if he did not starve in the bush; and if he misbehaved himself in any way, the squatter sent him to the nearest magistrate to be flogged.'
"'Were the squatters not allowed to administer punishment?' queried Doctor Bronson.
"'No, they were not,' was the reply; 'but the magistrate usually applied the lash without taking the trouble to inquire into the case. It was no uncommon thing for a convict employed on a squatter's station to be sent with a note to the magistrate, in which the latter was requested to give the man two or three dozen lashes, as the case might be. He received them and was sent home; if he ran away, either before or after the flogging, notice was given at once, and the police were speedily after him. In the bush he could easily elude the police, but the necessity for food generally drove him to surrender or led to his capture. No one was allowed to give food to a runaway; and as the general safety depended on the suppression of bush-ranging, no one was inclined to do so.'
"'But didn't men sometimes make their escape and live in the bush?'