BOLriNa AND CHEATING. 
that the conductor had received a bribe to gain over 
the maste»*. The money demanded was paid, the con- 
tractor and his men were to be on the estate in four 
days, and we were to have lines, rice, and tools all 
ready. At the appointed time he duly arrived — with 
six or eight men : but what matter ? Plenty more were 
coming.” He had merely brought the eight men to 
make a start and to convince the master that he was 
a strictly honourable man, and never told lies. “ All 
right,’’ says I. “When are they coming? Away you 
go, and bring them as fast as you can. The conductor 
a?id myself are surely enough to look after your eight 
men. ” But he did not go : he lingered about the veran- 
dah. Not being used to the customs of the people, I 
could not make out what was the meaning of this. How 
green we were in those days ! After some preliminary 
coughs, the conductor informed me, that he had got 
plenty of coolies, they were all ready to come, every- 
thing was settled, except some more advance, and he 
would now require thirty pounds more. And so the 
murder was out.” 
Perhaps he got it, or, what was more likely, he got 
the half of it. Affer the lapse of considerable time, you 
would first suspect, and then become painfully certain 
that the men had bolted. You were now down upon 
his friend and security, blit he also was bewailing his 
own loss. Had n’t- he lent him £5, and had not his wife 
lost all her jewels, for it* had just been found out that, 
before he went away, he had abstracted them from her 
box, &c. 
If you believed all this, your name was Mr. Jolly 
Green. The contractor and his friend are art and parr, 
and no doubt the latter has had his own share or pro- 
portion of the spoil. For it was the friend that first 
nitroduced him to the master, as being “ a very good 
man.” Having no wish to be particularly severe qn head 
kanganies and contractors for felling, it may not be out 
of place to admit, that extreme cases have been given, 
exceptionally bad ones ; it would be endless to enter into 
ail the tricks of the profession on a minor scale of petty 
rascalities ; their name was legion. There were, how- 
ever, many head kanganies and felling contractors that 
did their respective works, with credit to themselves and 
profit to their employers, provided all circumstances ran 
smoothly, and they were not exposed to any trying or 
peculiar temptations to dishonesty in any form. There 
were even a few who did their work, and did it honestly 
in spite of any moderate temptation to the contrary, but 
it might have been that they were not sorely tried. 
