Timber Destruction.

On the 12th October Mr. Murphy issued a prohibition against the cutting of wood by sawyers without the permission of the owner of the land. This partial recognition of the title of the settlers, so necessary to prevent the great devastation which was now progressing in all the timbered lands within a few miles from the town, had been steadily refused by the Colonial Secretary, who used to tell the applicants “that they were all squatters—that they had no more right to the timber than the sawyers, until the Crown had granted a title to the land, and that he expected shortly to receive orders to eject them from the Crown lands.”

During the building of the town, so great had been the demand for sawn timber, and so high the price paid in consequence, that the sawyers, paying nothing for their logs, used to earn enough in two days to remain idle and drunk the other five. Reckless in their destruction of the forest, they cut down only the best trees, and often left a log untouched after it was felled, in order to take some other which would fall in a more convenient position. They lived a wild life on the outskirts of the settlement, and their forest huts afforded shelter to the sailors who deserted their ships and to many worse characters.