Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/266

 240 may be made to communicate by unexpensive cuts. Mr. K. seems prejudiced against a windmill; nor does he think that Mr. Revely's horizontal one can succeed; and insists that more can be done by gravity than by impulse.

26th.—I have just hired a thresher, paying him 1s. 6d. a bushel: he threshes five or six bushels a day, so he earns high wages. My wheat is good, and yields well. I wanted to hire a boy also, but his former master would not give him a certificate, because he had left him without previous warning: this is a wholesome check, which was resolved on at an agricultural meeting, greatly to the annoyance of some of the servants of the colony. While I was at breakfast, the messenger of the Civil Court at Perth came with affidavits, &c., to support an application for a writ against the captain of a vessel, who is about to leave the colony, while there are some unsettled questions of law affecting him. This is one of the few cases in which there is an arrest in civil matters here; and the writ can only be issued by myself.

The same messenger also brought intelligence that a ship had arrived from Hobart Town, but without a mail. This appeared so strange that I determined to ride down and inquire for myself—True enough—not a single letter, parcel, or package has she brought—nothing but her own freight of cattle, flour, and potatoes. There is some mystery which we cannot as yet develope;