nywhere without a
leg-rope. "Here Tom," he roared to his son, "bring a bucket, and
come and milk Daisy without the rope, and show the gentleman what a
quiet beast she is." Tom brought a bucket, placed the stool near the
cow, sat down, and grasped one of the teats. Daisy did not give any
milk, but she gave instead three rapid kicks, which scattered Tom,
the bucket, and the stool all over the stockyard. I could not think
of anything that it would be safe to say under the circumstances, so
I went away while the farmer was picking up the fragments.

GOVERNMENT OFFICERS IN THE BUSH.

"Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do."

Although I had to attend at three courts on three days of each week,
my duties were very light, and quite insufficient to keep me out of
mischief; it was therefore a matter of very great importance for me
to find something else to do. In bush townships the art of killing
time was attained in various ways. Mr. A. went on the street with a
handball, and coaxed some stray idler to join him in a game. He was
a young man of exceptional innocence, and died early, beloved of the
gods. Mr. B. kept a pair of sticks under his desk in the court
house, and made a fencing school of the space allotted to the public.
Some of the police had been soldiers, and were quite pleased to prove
their skill in arms, and show how fields were won. As a result there
were more breaches of the peace inside the court than outside. Mr.
C. tried to while away his lonely hours by learning to play on a
violin, which he kept concealed in a corner between a press and the
wall of his office. He executed music, and doubled the terrors of
the law. Intending litigants stood transfixed with horror when they
approached the open door of his office, and listened to the wails and
long-drawn screeches which filled the interior of the building; and
every passing dog sat down on its tail, and howled in sympathetic
agony with the maddening sounds.

But the majority of the officials condemned to live in the dreary
townships tried to alleviate their misery by drinking and gambling.
The Police Magistrate, the Surveyor, the Solicitor, the Receiver of
Revenue, the Police Inspector, and the Clerk of Courts, together with
one or two settlers, formed a little society for the promotion of
poker, euchre, and other little games, interspersed with whiskies.
It is sad to recall to mind the untimely end at which most of them
arrived