Inferior in its banks and theaters to Virginia City, or even Austin, there is one point in which Hokitika surpasses every American mining town that I have seen--the goodness, namely, of its roads. Working upon them in the bright morning sun which this day graced “rainy Hokitika” with its presence, were a gang of diggers and sailors, dressed in the clothes which every one must wear in a digging town, unless he wishes to be stared at by passers-by. Even sailors on shore “for a run” here wear cord breeches and high tight-fitting boots, often armed with spurs, though, as there are no horses except those of the Gold Coast Police, they cannot enjoy much riding. The gang working on the roads were like the people I met about the town--rough, but not ill-looking fellows. To my astonishment I saw, conspicuous among their red shirts and “jumpers,” the blue and white uniform of the mounted police; and from the way in which the constables handled their loaded rifles, I came to the conclusion that the road-menders must be a gang of prisoners. On inquiry, I found that all the New Zealand “convicts,” including under this sweeping title men convicted for mere petty offenses, and sentenced to hard labor for a month, are made to do good practical work upon the roads: so much resistance to the police, so much new road made or old road mended. I was reminded of the Missourian practice of setting prisoners to dig out the stumps that cumber the streets of the younger towns: the sentence on a man for being drunk is said to be that he pull up a black walnut stump; drunk and disorderly, a large buck-eye; assaulting the sheriff, a tough old hickory root, and so on. The hair and beard of the short-sentence “convicts” in New Zealand is never cut, and there is nothing hang-dog in their looks; but their faces are often bright, and even happy. These cheerful prisoners are for the most part “runners”--sailors who have broken their agreements in order to get upon the diggings, and who bear their punishment philosophically, with the hope of future “finds” before them. When the great rush to Melbourne occurred in 1848, ships by the hundred were left in the Yarra without a single hand to navigate them. Nuggets in the hand would not tempt sailors away from the hunt after the nuggets in the bush. Ships left Hobson‘s Bay for Chili with half a dozen hands; and in one case that came within my knowledge, a captain, his mate, and three Maories took a brig across the Pacific to San Francisco.