When a man had finished his sentence in the chain gang, he was sentenced to a road party, and it was Heaven to the chain gang. There was not so much slavery, and it was possible to get a sort of bed to lie down on at night, if it were only a sheet of ti-tree bark. The men got a little more food, too, and they were allowed to cook it themselves; but it was often a straggling piece of meat with about as much fat on it as would grease the eye of a packing-needle. One man always remained to mind the camp while the others were at work, and very often he used to do what was known as "weeding"--that was, taking a little out of each man's allowance of provisions, and then he had a little to sell and get money to buy himself some tea and sugar. But one of them went too far at this game at last and was caught; then there was a fearful uproar. The overseer was going to take him to court straight away, but the other men said they would rather settle it amongst themselves, and this they did by each man giving him three blows on the back with a knotted handkerchief; for if he had been taken to court, he was almost certain to get six months in irons, as the authorities did not believe in the men robbing one another of their food. I gave him three good hits, and the handkerchief used to rebound like India-rubber. In the road party it was a funny sight to see some of the flash "specials" using a cross-cut saw. Their hands were very soft, and they used to tie pieces of old shirts round the handles at each end to protect them. They generally liked a saw that would 'pinch,' so that they would have an excuse to go to the camp for a maul and wedges to drive into the cut and prevent the pinching; thus they schemed and wasted their time. In the middle of work I often heard them commence to talk about the fine wine they had drank at some of the big inns in London--"The Angel at Islington," "The Hole in the Wall," or "The Elephant and Castle," for instance, and some of them had never tasted wine in their lives. At night they began to 'blow' about how they had done some of the honest merchants in England out of large and small sums of money; but it was a different tale now--they saw very little money in the road party. But some of them had fine times of it during one boss's term of office, for he did not abuse them. It was different when old Major S---- came along to inspect them. He came along once while I was there, and said to one fellow, "Hulloa! what did you get sent out for?" "Forgery on Mr. So and So," was the answer. "Dear me! he's a particular friend of mine. Here, constable, take the tail off his coat and brand him all over." The constable then cut the tail of his coat close off around the waist and branded him all over, leaving such a smell of paint from the brands that the flies would keep off him for a good many days afterwards.