The great mass of the convicts were therefore retained by the government. They were fed, clothed, and lodged by government, and organised in gangs. Each gang was under an overseer--an old convict--who was certain to err either on the side of culpable leniency towards his charges, or of brutal cruelty. Stories are told of an overseer who killed three men in a fortnight from overwork at the sawmill. "We used to be taken in large parties," says the same old hand that I mentioned before, "to raise a tree. When the body of the tree was raised, old ---- (the overseer) would call some of the men away, then more. The men were bent double, they could not bear the weight--they fell, and on them the tree, killing one or two on the spot. 'Take them away: put them in the ground.' There was no more about it." Another overseer was described as "the biggest villain that ever lived. He delighted in torment, and used to walk up and down rubbing his hands when the blood ran. When he walked abroad the flogger walked behind him. He died a miserable death: maggots ate him up. Not a man could be found to bury him." A third overseer was sent to bury a man who, though weak and almost insensible, was not dead. "For God's sake," cried the poor wretch, "don't cover me up. I'm not dead." "You will be before night," replied the overseer. "Cover him up" (with an oath), "or we shall have to come back again to do the work a second time." On the other hand, it was known that overseers connived at irregularities of every description. The men were allowed to work as little as they pleased; many left their parties altogether to rob, and returned at nightfall to share their plunder with the overseers. Naturally the work accomplished for the public service did not amount to much. The hours of labour were from 6 A. M. to 3 P. M., after which the rest of the day belonged to the convict to be spent in amusement or labour profitable to himself. Even in these days the punishment of transportation fell most unequally on different men. While the commoner classes of offenders were consigned to the gangs or drafted off to be the slaves of the low-bred settler, persons who had held a higher station in life, or who had been transported for what came to be called "genteel crimes," forgery, that is to say, embezzlement, and the like, were granted tickets-of-leave at once, which exempted them from all compulsory labour and allowed them to provide for themselves. To them the only hardship entailed by their crimes was the enforced exile.