THE ABORIGINAL TEIBES. 165 



and a scoundrel. His craving for drink made him a 

 ready tool in the hands of every designing knave ; and 

 to the dangerous temper of the drunken savage he soon 

 began to add the viciousness of a debased and desperate 

 character. To the forests the injury was scarcely less. 

 Having no implements but their little axes, and their 

 employers being wholly indifferent to economical 

 processes, these woodcutters procured their material in 

 the most wasteful way possible. To produce a post for 

 a cattle-pen a straight young teak sapling of ten or 

 fifteen years' growth would be felled, and a piece six 

 feet long taken from its middle, all the rest being left to 

 perish. To procure a plank for a door a mature tree 

 would be cut down, and hewn away to the requisite 

 thickness with the axe. Timber was then doubtless 

 cheap because nothing but the labour of these down- 

 trodden races was expended in procuring it, and as many 

 of them as they desired could be procured by the spirit- 

 dealers for a wage which to the latter was almost 

 nothing. In those days, the excise arrangements being 

 very lax, the duty levied on spirits was very low ; and 

 enough liquor could be brewed to make a Gond drunk 

 for about a penny of our money. No forests could 

 stand such a drain as this ; and this wasteful system of 

 working them was one of the main causes of their 

 impending exhaustion. 



It is fortunate that, under an improved administra- 

 tion, means were found at once to put a stop to this 

 wholesale waste, and to greatly ameliorate the condition 

 of the aboriginal labourer. The first step in this 

 direction was the introduction of a new excise law, 

 under which the formerly unrestricted power of estab- 

 lishing spirit-stills and grog-shops among the aborigines 



