The theft was discovered at Boulogne, when the boxes were found not to weigh exactly what they ought. But no clue was obtained to the thieves, and the theft might have remained a mystery but for the subsequent bad faith of Pierce to his accomplice Agar. The latter was ere long arrested on a chargeof uttering forged checks, convicted, and sentenced to transportation for life. When he knew that he could not escape his fate, he handed over to Pierce a sum of £3,000, his own, whether rightly or wrongly acquired never came out, together with the unrealised part of the bullion, amounting in all to some £15,000, and begged his accomplice to invest it as a settlement on a woman named Kay, by whom he had had a child. Pierce made Kay only a few small payments, then appropriated the rest of the money. Kay, who had been living with Agar at the time of the bullion robbery, went to the police in great fury and distress, and disclosed all she knew of the affair. Agar too, in Newgate, heard how Pierce had treated him, and at once readily turned informer. As the evidence he gave incriminated Pierce, Burgess, and Tester, all three were arrested and committed to Newgate for trial. The whole strange story, the long incubation and the elaborate accomplishment of the plot, came out at the Old Bailey, and was acknowledged to be one of the most extraordinary on record.
Scarcely had the conviction of these daring and astute thieves been assured, than another gigantic fraud was brought to light. The series of boldly conceived and cleverly executed forgeries in which James Townshend Saward, commonly called "Jim the Penman," was the prime mover, has probably no parallel in the annals of crime. Saward himself is a striking and in some respects a unique figurein criminal history. A man of birth and education, a member of the bar, and of acknowledged legal attainments, his proclivities were all downward. Instead of following an honourable profession, he preferred to turn his great natural talents and ready wits to the most nefarious practices. He was known to the whole criminal fraternity as a high-class receiver of stolen goods, a negotiator more especially of stolen paper, checks and bills, of which he made a particular use. He dealt too in the precious metals, when they had been improperly acquired, and it was to him that Agar, Pierce, and the rest applied when seeking to dispose of their stolen bullion. But Saward's operations were mainly directed to the fabrication and uttering of forged checks. His method was comprehensive and deeply laid. Burglars brought him the checks they stole from houses, thieves what they got in pocket-books. Checks blank and cancelled were his stock in trade. The former he filled up by exact imitation of the latter, signature and all. When he could get nothing but the blank check, he set in motion all sorts of schemes for obtaining signatures, such as commencing sham actions, and addressing formal applications, merely for the reply. One stroke of luck which he turned to great account was the return from transportation of an old "pal" and confederate, who brought with him some bills of exchange.
Saward's method of negotiating the checks was equally well planned. Like his great predecessor"Old Patch," he himself never went to a bank, nor did any of his accomplices. The bearer of the check was always innocent and ignorant of the fraudulent nature of the document he presented. In order to obtain messengers of this sort, Saward answered advertisements of persons seeking employment, and when these presented themselves, intrusted them as a beginning with the duty of cashing checks. A confederate followed the emissary closely, not only to insure fair play and the surrender of the proceeds if the check was cashed, but to give timely notice if it were not, so that Saward and the rest might make themselves scarce. As each transaction was carried out from a different address, and a different messenger always employed, the forgers always escaped detection. But fate overtook two of the gang, partly through their own carelessness, when transferring their operations to Yarmouth. One named Hardwicke assumed the name of Ralph, and, to obtain commercial credit in Yarmouth, paid £250 to a Yarmouth bank as coming from a Mr. Whitney. He forgot to add that it was to be placed to Ralph's credit, and when he called as Ralph, he was told it was only at Mr. Whitney's disposal, and that it could be paid to no one else. Hardwicke, or "Ralph," appealed to Saward in his difficulty, and that clever schemer sent an elaborate letter of instructions how to ask for the money. But while Hardwicke was in communication with Saward, the bank was in communication with London,and the circumstances were deemed sufficiently suspicious to warrant the arrest of the gentlemen at Yarmouth on a charge of forgery and conspiracy.
Saward's letter to Hardwicke fell into the hands of the police and compromised him. While Hardwicke and Atwell were in Newgate awaiting trial, active search was made for Saward, who was at length taken in a coffee-shop near Oxford Street, under the name of Hopkins. He resisted at first, and denied his identity, but on being searched, two blank checks of the London and Westminster Bank were found in his pocket. He then confessed that he was the redoubtable Jim Saward, or Jim the Penman, and was conveyed to a police court, and thence to Newgate. At his trial Atwell and Hardwicke, two of his chief allies and accomplices, turned informers, and the whole scheme of systematic forgery was laid bare. The evidence was corroborated by that of many of the victims who had acted as messengers, and others who swore to the meetings of the conspirators and their movements. Saward was found guilty, and the judge, in passing sentence of transportation for life, expressed deep regret that "the ingenuity, skill, and talent, which had received so perverted and mistaken direction, had not been guided by a sense of virtue, and directed to more honourable and useful pursuits." The proceeds of these forgeries amounted, it was said, to some thousands per annum. Saward spent all his share at low gaming houses, and in all manner ofdebaucheries. He was in person a short, square-built man of gentlemanly address, sharp and shrewd in conversation and manner. He was fifty-eight at the time of his conviction, and had therefore had a long criminal career.
The vicissitudes of the felon transport who ventured to return before his sentence of exile had expired, has been told by one of their number. His statement bears date of 1852 and runs as follows:
"At the time of the offence for which I was convicted I was suffering from the most acute pecuniary distress, with a wife and large family of children. A series of misfortunes—the most heavy was the death of my second wife, by which I lost an annuity of £150, with a great falling off, notwithstanding all my exertions, in my occupation as reporter to the public press—brought about mainly the distress in question. Previous to the commission of the offence I had through life borne an irreproachable character. In early life, from 1818 to 1822, I held some most responsible appointments in Jamaica and other West India Islands; from 1829 to 1834, I held the appointment of Magistrate's Clerk and Postmaster at Bong Bong in New South Wales; afterwards was superintendent of large farms in Bathurst, over the Blue Mountains, in the same colony. At the later period I had a wife and family of young children; the former, a most amiable partner, I had the misfortune to lose in 1838, leaving me with seven young children. My connections aremost respectable. My late father was an officer of rank, and of very meritorious services. My eldest brother is at present a major in the Royal Marine Corps. I was convicted in October, 1846; was three months in Millbank Penitentiary, at which period fears were entertained that my intellect would become impaired in solitary confinement; subsequently I was three years and two months in theWarriorconvict ship at Woolwich, during which period I was employed on the government works in the dockyard; and was sent abroad in March, 1850. At Millbank and the hulks I had the best possible character, as also on my arrival at Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, after a passage of four months. On my arrival I received a ticket-of-leave, which I retained until I left the colony, never having forfeited the same for a day by any kind of insubordinate conduct. My motive in leaving Van Diemen's Land was to proceed to the gold-diggings, in the hope that I might be successful and better the condition of my family at home, who were in very impoverished circumstances; but although my exertions were very great in California, Victoria, and New South Wales, I was unsuccessful. It is true I made, occasionally, some money; but I was robbed of it on the road by armed bushrangers, and frequently ill-used and robbed at Melbourne and Geelong by the worst of characters. I was shipwrecked twice, and once burnt out at sea: the first time in Torres Straits, between New Holland and NewGuinea on a reef of coral rocks. Upon this occasion I lost between £70 and £80 in cash, and all my luggage. Eleven only of us got ashore, out of a ship's company of twenty-seven, chiefly Lascars, Malays, and Chinamen. After thirty days' great suffering and privation we were picked up by an American whaler, and ultimately reached Sydney, New South Wales.
"I was subsequently wrecked in a brigantine called theTriton, going from Melbourne to Adelaide, and lost all I possessed in the world, having another very narrow escape of my life. In returning from San Francisco to Melbourne in a vessel called theWhite Squall, she caught fire about three hundred and fifty miles from Tahiti (formerly called Otaheite). We were obliged to abandon her and take to the boats; but a great number of the crew and passengers perished by fire and water. The survivors in the boats reached Tahiti in about eight days, in a state of great exhaustion; many of them died from the effects of the same. I had the misfortune to lose nearly all I possessed upon this occasion. On reaching Melbourne I was very ill and went into the hospital. I left in about five weeks, intending to go again to Mount Alexander diggings; but, owing to ill-health, bad state of the roads from the floods, and limited means, I abandoned such intention. I had a twelvemonth before been to Ballarat, Mount Alexander, Forest Creek, Bendigo, and many other diggings: but at thistime there were no police or gold escort troopers, consequently nearly all the unfortunate diggers were robbed of what they got by hordes of bushrangers, well mounted, and armed with revolvers and other weapons to the teeth. In returning to Melbourne from Forest Creek the last time, I was beat, stripped, and robbed of all I had, in the Black Forest, about halfway between Melbourne and Mount Alexander.
"I left Melbourne in the brigKestrelfor Sydney, New South Wales, at which place I was acquainted with many respectable parties, some of whom I had known as far back as 1829, when I first went to Sydney with my wife and children. TheKestrelput in at some of the settlements of New Zealand, at one of which (Auckland) was lying a barque, bound for England, in want of hands. The temptation was great to reach my dear family, for which I had mourned ever since I met with my misfortune. I shipped myself as ordinary seaman and assistant steward. We left the settlement in July, with a miserably crippled ship's company, and made a very severe passage round Cape Horn, in the winter season, which carried away masts, sails, rigging, boats, bulwarks, stanchions, etc., etc. Some of the crew were lost with the yards, and most of us were frost-bitten. We put into Rio de Janeiro to refit and provision. We proceeded on our passage, crossed the equator, touched at Funchal—one of the Azores—for two days, and reached England in September,after a severe passage of four months and twenty-six days from New Zealand.
"Under all the circumstances of my present unhappy condition, I humbly hope the legislature will humanely consider the long, severe, and various descriptions of punishment I have undergone since my conviction. I would also most respectfully call the attention of the authorities to the fact that the offence for which I have so severely suffered was the first deviation from strict rectitude during my life; and that I have never since, upon any occasion whatever, received a second sentence even of the most minor description. It was only required of me by the then regulation of the service, that I should serve five years upon the public works at Woolwich. On my embarkation for Van Diemen's Land I had done three years and four months: if I had completed the remaining twenty months I should have been discharged from the dockyard a free man. I also humbly beg to state, at the time I left Van Diemen's Land, six years after my conviction, I was entitled by the regulations of the service to a conditional pardon, which would have left me at liberty to leave the colony without further restraint. I beg to state that during the period of three years and four months I was at the hulks I worked in all the gangs in the dockyard. Upon several occasions I received severe injuries, some of which required me to be sent to the hospital ship. I was ruptured by carrying heavy weights, the effect of which I havefrequently felt since, and do to the present day. During the two periods when the cholera raged in the hulks, I attended upon the sick at the hospital ships. I humbly implore the government will have compassion upon me for the sake of my numerous and respectable family, for my great mental and bodily sufferings since my conviction, and for my present weakly, worn-out debilitated state of health, and award me a mild sentence. During my captivity and absence my unfortunate wife has suffered from great destitution, and has buried two of her children. She is again bereaved of me in a distressed condition with her only surviving child, a little girl of ten years of age."
This man was set at large without punishment.
Lamentable state of Van Diemen's Land—Colony on the brink of ruin—Latest convict schemes a complete failure—Glut of labour and deadlock in employment—Terrible state of Norfolk Island—Convicts rule—Report of special commissioner—Ill-advised leniency—Severer discipline introduced—Interference with so-called rights aggravates misconduct—Many murders committed—New commandant appointed—Offenders brought to trial—Fourteen hanged—Norfolk Island condemned—Creation of new Colony in Northern Australia Gladstone's scheme—Change of Ministry and new measures—Exile to Van Diemen's Land checked—The new Colonies refuse to receive convicts—Western Australia alone admits them—An insufficient outlet—New ideas.
Lamentable state of Van Diemen's Land—Colony on the brink of ruin—Latest convict schemes a complete failure—Glut of labour and deadlock in employment—Terrible state of Norfolk Island—Convicts rule—Report of special commissioner—Ill-advised leniency—Severer discipline introduced—Interference with so-called rights aggravates misconduct—Many murders committed—New commandant appointed—Offenders brought to trial—Fourteen hanged—Norfolk Island condemned—Creation of new Colony in Northern Australia Gladstone's scheme—Change of Ministry and new measures—Exile to Van Diemen's Land checked—The new Colonies refuse to receive convicts—Western Australia alone admits them—An insufficient outlet—New ideas.
Within three years of the establishment of the new system, already described at length, by which transportation was to be robbed of all its evils, the most deplorable results showed themselves. The condition of Van Diemen's Land had become most lamentable. It was filled to overflowing with convicts. There were in all 25,000, half of whom were still in the hands of government; and besides these numbers there were three thousand pass-holders waiting for hire, but unable to obtain employment. The latter would be reinforced by as many more in the year immediately following. The colony itselfwas on the verge of bankruptcy: its finances embarrassed, its trades and industries depressed. With all this was a wholesale exodus of all classes of free people—the better class, to avoid the ruin that stared them in the face, and working men, because higher wages were offered elsewhere in the neighbouring colonies. Already, in fact, the new system of probation had broken down. It had given rise to evils greater than any which it had been expected to replace. Not only was Van Diemen's Land itself on the brink of ruin, but the consequences to the convicts were almost too terrible to be described. Mr. Pitcairn, a resident of Hobart Town, raised an indignant protest, in which he urges that "all that the free colonists suffer, even the total destruction of Van Diemen's Land as a free colony, is as nothing to what the wretched convicts are forced to submit to. It is not bodily suffering that I refer to: it is the pollution of their minds and hearts which is forced upon them and which they cannot escape from. Loathsome as are the details of their miserable state, it is impossible to see thousands of men debased and depraved without at least making an attempt to save others from the same fate." The congregation of criminals in large numbers without due supervision, meant simply wholesale, wide-spread pollution. Assignment, with all its faults, had at least the merit of dispersing the evil over a wide area.
Not only in its debasing effects upon the convictsthemselves was the system quite a failure. Half the scheme became a dead letter from the impoverished condition of the colony. Of what avail was it to prepare prisoners gradually for honest labour when there was no labour upon which they could be employed? The whole gist and essence of the scheme was that after years of restraint the criminal, purged of his evil propensities, would gladly lend himself out for hire. But what if there were no hirers? Yet this was practically the state of the case. Following inevitably from the unnatural over-crowding of Van Diemen's Land, there came a great glut in the labour market. Had the colony been thoroughly prosperous, and as big as the neighbouring island-continent, it could hardly have found employment for the thousands of convicts poured in year by year. Being quite the reverse—small and almost stagnant—a species of deadlock was the certain result of this tremendous influx. To make matters worse, goaded, doubtless, by the excessive costliness of the whole scheme, the imperial government insisted that all hirers should pay a tax over and above the regular wages for every convict engaged, and this whether the hirer was a private person or the public works department of the colony. Neither private nor public funds could stand this charge. In the general distress, employers of labour could hardly afford the moderate wages asked; while the local revenues were equally impecunious. Yet there were many works urgently needed in the colony, which thecolonial government was quite disposed to execute—provided they got their labour for nothing. But to pay for it was impossible. In fact, this imperial penuriousness defeated its own object. The home government would not let out its labour except at a price which no one would pay; so the thousands who might at least have lived at their own expense, remained at that of the government. They were put to raise produce for their own support; but they earned nothing, and ate their heads off into the bargain. They had, moreover, a grievance. They were denied all fruition in the status to which, by their own conduct and according to prescribed rules, they arrived. They had been promised that after a certain probationary period they would pass into a stage of semi-freedom. Yet here, after all, they were in a condition little superior to the convicts in the gangs—in the very stage, that is to say, which the pass-holders had left behind them. The authorities had, in fact, broken faith with them. This was a fatal flaw in the scheme; a link broken in the chain; a gap in the sequence of progressive probation enough to bring the whole to ruin.
But at any rate the pass-holders were better off than the "conditional-pardon" or "ticket-of-leave" men. The first named had still a lien on the government. They were certain of food, and a roof over their heads at the various hiring depôts. But those who were in a stage further ahead towards freedom were upon their own resources. These menwere "thrown upon the world with nothing but their labour to support them." But no labour was in demand. What, then, was to become of them? They must steal, or starve; and as the outcome of either alternative, the community might expect to be weighted with a large and increasing population of thieves and paupers.
Nor would any description of the main island alone suffice to place in a proper light the actual state of affairs. Norfolk Island, the chief penal settlement, had deteriorated so rapidly, that what was bad before, had grown to be infinitely and irremediably worse. Naylor, a clergyman, writing about this time, paints a terrible picture of the island. Rules disregarded; convicts of every degree mingled indiscriminately in the settlement. Some of the prisoners had been convicted, and reconvicted, and had passed through every grade of punishment in hulks, chain-gangs, or penal settlements. Among them were "flash men," who kept the island in awe, and bearded the commandant himself; bodies of from seventy to one hundred often in open mutiny, refusing to work, and submitting only when terms had been arranged to their satisfaction. The island was kept in perpetual alarm; houses were robbed in open day; yet no successful efforts were made to bring the culprits to justice. An official long resident on the island tells the following incident: that a favourite parrot, with its cage, was stolen from his house, and the thief was known, and seen withthe bird. He kept it in his barrack-room, and took it daily with him to his work. Yet no one dared to interfere with him! The bird was left in his possession, and he altogether escaped punishment. The commandant was deliberately knocked down by one of these ruffians and received severe contusions. The state of the island might well awaken alarm.
In 1846 a special commissioner was despatched from headquarters at Hobart Town, to report from personal observation on the state of the settlement. It is abundantly evident from his report, which will be foundin extensoin a Blue-Book on convict discipline, issued in February, 1847, that some terrific explosion of the seething elements collected together at Norfolk Island might be looked for at any early day. Mr. Stewart, the commissioner, attributed the condition of the settlement chiefly to the lax discipline maintained by its commandant. This gentleman certainly appears to have been chosen unwisely. He was quite the wrong man for the place, utterly unfitted for the arduous duties he was called upon to perform. Of a weak and vacillating disposition, he seldom had the courage to act upon his own judgment. It was openly alleged that his decisions rested with his chief clerk. Most of his subordinates were at loggerheads with one another, but he never dared to settle their quarrels himself. Points the most trivial were referred always to headquarters. He was equally wanting in resolute determination in dealing with the great mass of convicts whoconstituted the bulk of his command. With them he was forever temporising and making allowances; so that rules, never too severe, came by degrees to be sensibly relaxed, till leniency grew into culpable pampering and childish considerateness. As might have been expected, the objects of his tender solicitude were utterly ungrateful. He interfered sometimes to soften the sentences of the sitting magistrate, even when they were light enough; but his kindness was only mistaken for weakness, and the men in his charge became day by day more insolent and insubordinate. Where firmness was required in almost every particular, in order to maintain anything like a controlling supervision, it was altogether wanting. This commandant was considered by his supreme chief, to be "totally unfitted for the peculiar situation in which he is placed, either from want of experience, or from an absence in his own character of the qualifications necessary to control criminals."
Of a truth, Norfolk Island was a government that could not be entrusted to any but iron hands. That this commandant was clearly the wrong man for the post cannot be questioned; nevertheless, he was not altogether to blame for the terrible state of affairs existing. No doubt by his wavering incompetence the original condition of the island was greatly aggravated, but all these evils which presently broke out and bore such noxious fruit, had been germinating long before his time. It had beenthe custom for many years to treat the convicts with ill-advised leniency. They had been allowed practically too much indulgence, and were permitted to forget that they owed their location on that island solely to their own grievous crimes and offences. They had been kept in order by concession, and not by stern force; persuaded to be good, rather than coerced when bad. Such a method of procedure can but have one result with criminals. It is viewed by them as weakness of which they are quick to take every advantage. Here, at Norfolk Island, under a loose régime, the convicts had always been allowed their own way; half the officers placed over them trafficked with them, and were their free-and-easy familiar friends. On the introduction of the new system, no attempt was made to sweep the place clean before the arrival of greatly increased numbers. Old officers remained, and old convicts; enough of both to perpetuate the old evils and to render them twice as harmful under the new aspect of the settlement. Gardens were still allowed; great freedom to come and go hither and thither, with no strict observance of bounds; any number of private shops existed whereat the convicts bought and sold, or bartered with each other for pork and vegetables and other articles of general use. Worse than this, the "Ring" was left untouched, and grew daily more and more powerful, till a band of some forty or fifty cut-throat scoundrels ruled the whole convictdom of the settlement. The members ofthis "Ring" were in league with the cooks, from whom they obtained the best portions of the food, abstracted from their fellow-prisoners' rations; but no one dared to complain. Such was the malignant terrorism inspired by these fifty ruffians, that they kept the whole body of the convicts in awe, and their wholesale plunderings and pilferings flourished unchecked long before any attempt was made to put them down. Under such conditions as these, the management of the convicts in Norfolk Island was certainly a disgrace to the authorities.
Following Mr. Stewart's visit, a more stringent system was attempted, although not entirely carried out. The commandant was informed that he must tighten the reins. One by one the highly prized privileges disappeared: trafficking was now for the first time openly discountenanced, and the prisoners at length saw themselves debarred from many little luxuries and indulgences. A strictly coercive labour-gang was established; the gardens were shut; the limits of bounds rigorously enforced; and, last but not least, a firm attack was made upon the method of messing, to check, if possible, the unlawful misappropriation of food. In this last measure lay the seed of serious trouble. It interfered directly with the vested interest of a small but powerful oligarchy, the members of which were not disposed to surrender lightly the rights they had so long arrogated to themselves. From the moment that the robberies in the cook-house had been discovered, agrowing spirit of dissatisfaction and discontent was observable among the more influential prisoners.
A second authorised attack in the same direction brought matters to a crisis. Not the least of the evils attending the old plan of messing was, that the prisoners themselves, one by one, were allowed access to the kitchen, where they might cook anything they happened to have in possession, whether obtained by fair means or foul. To meet these culinary requirements, most of the "flash men" had collected pots and pans of various sorts, constructed chiefly from the regulation mess-tins and platters. It was decided as a bold stroke against illicit cookery, to seize everybatterie de cuisinein the place. Accordingly, one evening, after the convicts had been locked up for the night, a careful search was made through the lumber-yard (the mess-room, so to speak), and everything of illegal shape was seized. All these collected articles were then and there removed to the convicts' barrack store. It must be remarked here that several of the officials shrunk from executing this duty. One free overseer, named Smith, who was also superintendent of the cook-house, urged that he was all day among the prisoners, and felt his life hardly safe if it were known that he had taken part in the search. Others demurred also; but eventually the work was done.
Next morning, when the convicts went to breakfast, they missed their highly prized kitchen utensils. A storm quickly gathered, and broke forth withungovernable fury. A great mass of men, numbering several hundreds, streamed at once out of the lumber-yard, and hurried towards the barrack stores. Everything fell before them: fastenings, woodwork, doorposts. There within were the cans, the cause of all this coil. These they gathered up at once, and then turned back, stillen masse, to the lumber-yard. They were in search now of victims. Their thirst was for blood, and nothing less would quench it. They sought first the officers they hated most; and chief among these was Smith, the overseer of the kitchen. A convict named Westwood, by birth a gentleman, and having received a superior education, commonly called "Jacky-Jacky," was ringleader, and marched at the head of the mutineers. All were armed—some with long poles, others with axes, most with knives. It was a case ofsauve qui peutwith the officers. There were not more than half a dozen constables on duty, and warning came to four of them too late. Smith, who had remained in the cook-house, was caught and murdered on the spot. Another officer, Morris, was also killed. Two others were struck down with mortal hurts. All the wounds inflicted were about the head and face. One man had his forehead cut open deep down into the cavity of the head. He had also a frightful gash from the eye down the cheek, through which the roof of the mouth was visible. Another had the whole of one side of his face completely smashed in, from the temple to the mouth. A third unfortunateman had his skull fractured. All this had happened in less time than it takes to tell it. Then the mutineers cried out for more blood. Leaving the lumber-yard, they made for the police huts, driving the few remaining constables before them, and striking down all they overtook. At the police huts they smashed the windows and did what damage they could. They were then for proceeding onward. "Let's get that villain Barrow," was now the cry—Mr. Barrow being the stipendiary magistrate, whom they hated with especially keen hatred. They were determined, so it was afterwards said, to murder every official on the island, and then to take to the bush.
By this time active opposition was close at hand. First came a military guard, which formed across the road, and checked all further advance of the mutineers. Presently Mr. Barrow himself appeared upon the scene with a larger detachment of troops, and in the presence of this exhibition of force the convicts retired quietly enough to their barracks.
The strength of the storm therefore was now spent. The mutineers were either for the moment satisfied with their efforts, or—which is more probable—they were cowed by the troops, and felt that it was now the turn for authority to play its hand. Accompanied by a strong escort of soldiers, the stipendiary magistrate went in amongst the convicts, examined all carefully, and then and there arrested every one who bore a single spot or stain ofblood. Seven were thus singled out at once, among them Jacky-Jacky and several members of the "Ring." Forty-five others, who were strongly suspected of complicity in the murders, were also arrested; and all these, heavily ironed, were for immediate security chained together in a row to the iron runners of the boat-shed. But such was the alarm on the island, that the commandant was strenuously urged to remove these ringleaders at once to Van Diemen's Land.
Indeed it was felt on all sides that there was no longer any safety for either life or property. The convict population had reached the pitch of anarchy and insubordination. It was indeed thought that the storm would soon break out with renewed fury. The success which the mutineers had won would doubtless tempt them to fresh efforts. They gave signs, too, that they were ready to recommence. When the corpses of the murdered men were carried past the barracks, the convicts within yelled in derision, and cried that these victims should not be the last. The apprehension was so great, that some officials maintained that the convicts ought to remain immured in their barracks until a reinforcement of troops arrived. There were some, too, who doubted the loyalty of the soldiers, saying that the troops would yet make common cause with the convicts. But this was never proved. What was really evident, was that the soldiers were harassed and overworn by the incessant duties they had been calledupon recently to perform. They had been continually under arms, and were often on guard six nights out of the seven. Fortunately Sir Eardly Wilmot, Governor of Van Diemen's Land, had acted on Mr. Stewart's representations, and had despatched reinforcements long before this, which landed on the island a day or two after the actual outbreak. The most serious dangers were therefore at an end.
But the state of Norfolk Island called for some radical reformatory measures. If anything further had been needed to prove the incompetence of the commandant, it was to be found in his latest proceedings. Sudden changes, passing from laxity to strictness, had been made in the regulations; yet no precautionary measures were taken to meet that violent resistance which the convicts had long openly threatened. The last act of authority, the removal of the cooking utensils, should at least have been backed by an imposing exhibition of armed force. It was, indeed, time to substitute new men and new measures. The Hobart Town executive council resolved unanimously to suspend the commandant and to replace him by Mr. Price, the police magistrate of Hobart Town, a gentleman of knowledge, firmness, and long experience with the convict population in the island. His instructions were precise. He was to disarm the convicts and take from them the knives they habitually carried; to make all wear, without distinction, the convict dress; to compel close attendance on divine service; to institutemesses, regulate the muster, insist upon exact obedience to all rules, and above all, to enforce the due separation of the convicts at night. By close attention to these regulations it was hoped that peace and good order would soon be restored to the settlement.
At the same time condign punishment was meted out to the mutineers. A judge went down posthaste to the island, a court was formed immediately on his arrival, trials proceeded with, and fourteen were hanged the same day. This salutary example, with the measures promptly introduced by Mr. Price, soon restored order to the island. The new commandant was undoubtedly a man of great courage and decision of character. He acted always for himself, and looked into everything with his own eyes. Being perpetually on the move about the settlement, nothing escaped him. Frequently when he met convicts, though he might have with him only one constable as orderly, he would halt them, and search them from head to foot. If they had knives or other forbidden articles, he impounded them forthwith; saying as often as not, "I'll have you to understand, my men, that in twelve months you shall see a gold watch upon the road and yet not pick it up." Under his able government the evils of Norfolk Island were sensibly lessened; but nothing could wash the place clean. So convinced was the imperial government of this, that they had resolved, even before the news of the mutiny, to break up the settlement. But after that, positiveinstructions were sent out to carry this into effect, and by degrees the place was altogether abandoned.
Indeed, the results of "probation," as they had shown themselves, were far from ignored at home, and the members of successive administrations had sought anxiously to provide some remedy for evils so plainly apparent. Mr. Gladstone among others, when Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, propounded an elaborate scheme for the establishment of a new settlement in North Australia. This new colony was to provide an outlet for the overplus in labour, which at that time in Van Diemen's Land choked up every avenue to employment. "It is founded"—to use Mr. Gladstone's own words—"as a receptacle for convicts who, by pardon or lapse of time, have regained their freedom, but who may be unable to find elsewhere an effective demand for their services." It was to be a colony of emancipists. The earliest settlers would be exiles sent out from England, with whose assistance the governor of the new colony was to prepare for the arrival of the rest from Van Diemen's Land. The first points which would require attention, were the selection of the best sites for a town and harbour, the reservation of certain crown lands, and the distribution of the rest to the various sorts of settlers. All these points were fully discussed and provided for minutely by Mr. Gladstone. Every other detail was equally well arranged. As economy was to be the soul of the new settlement, its officials were torank lower than those of other colonies. The governor was to be styled only superintendent, and the judge, chairman of quarter sessions. The whole settlement was to be subordinate to New South Wales. And, as the word "convict" was somewhat unsavoury to the Australian colonists, Mr. Gladstone provided also for this.
Ruins of Prison Church, Tasmania
Ruins of Prison Church, Tasmania
The settlements in Tasmania formed an important feature of the English system of progressive penal servitude. Religious instruction was abundantly furnished, and a record of each prisoner's daily conduct was carefully kept, so that attendance at the regular church services naturally assisted the convict in his progress toward the last two stages of ticket-of-leave and pardon.
The settlements in Tasmania formed an important feature of the English system of progressive penal servitude. Religious instruction was abundantly furnished, and a record of each prisoner's daily conduct was carefully kept, so that attendance at the regular church services naturally assisted the convict in his progress toward the last two stages of ticket-of-leave and pardon.
In anticipation of the possible objections of the people of New South Wales to the establishment of a new convict settlement on the continent of Australia, Mr. Gladstone put his foot down firmly, and declared he would admit no such protest. "It would be with sincere regret," he says, "that I should learn that so important a body of Her Majesty's subjects were inclined to oppose themselves to the measures I have thus attempted to explain. Any such opposition must be encountered by reminding those from whom it might proceed, in terms alike respectful and decided, that it is impossible that Her Majesty should be advised to surrender what appears to be one of the vital interests of the British Empire at large, and one of the chief benefits which the British Empire can at present derive from the dominion which we have acquired over the vast territories of the crown in Australia. I think that by maintaining such a colony as a depot of labour, available to meet the local wants of the older colony, or to find employment for the capital accumulated there, we may rather promote than impede the development of the resources of New South Wales. Buteven if that hope should be disappointed, I should not, therefore, be able to admit that the United Kingdom was making an unjust or unreasonable exercise of the right of sovereignty over those vast regions of the earth, in thus devoting a part of them to the relief of Van Diemen's Land, and consequently to render that island the receptacle for as many convicts as it may be hereafter necessary to transport there. Having practically relieved New South Wales, at no small inconvenience to ourselves, from the burden (as soon as it became a burden) of receiving convicts from this country, we are acquitted of any obligations in that respect which any colonist, the most jealous for the interests of his native or adopted country, could ascribe to us."
But it never came to this. No antagonism in this instance ever arose between the colonial and imperial governments, for Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues just then went out of power, and the project of the new colony in North Australia was given up by the new ministry which had to deal with the question in two phases: first, the evils actually in existence from the over-crowding of Van Diemen's Land must be mitigated, if they could not be removed; and secondly, some plan must be adopted to obviate their recurrence in the future. The first point was touched by suspending transportation altogether for two years. The stream thus checked, would have to be directed elsewhere; but in the meantime, Van Diemen's Land would be relieved:in the course of two years the probation-gangs would be emptied, and the great labour pressure caused by the crowds of pass-holders would have disappeared. To deal still further with the actual difficulty, new and able men were appointed as administrators: Sir William Denison was to go out as governor, and Mr. Hampton comptroller-general of convicts. So much for the first point.
The second embraced a wider field. The government was bound, not only to provide for the thousands with which it had saddled itself by the cessation of transportation to Van Diemen's Land for a couple of years, but it had to look further ahead and legislate for future years. It was now decided that transportation, as it had hitherto been understood and carried out, should come to an end. Although two years had been the limit of its temporary suspension, any expectation of recurring to the old system at the end of that period was "altogether illusory." The new system, stated briefly, was to consist of a limited period of separate imprisonment at home, succeeded by employment on public works, either abroad at Bermuda or Gibraltar, or in this country; and ultimately followed in ordinary cases by exile or banishment for the remaining term of the original sentence. The following was now to be the ordering of the lives of convicts:
A term of separate confinement, continuing from six to eighteen months, according to sentence and the manner in which prisoners bore the punishment;forced labour at home penal establishments, or at Gibraltar or Bermuda, this term to depend also on sentence, but the time by arrangement of tasks to be shortened by industry; and finally tickets-of-leave in the colonies.
This system remained in force with sanguine hopes of success, until a year or two after the establishment of the system, when Van Diemen's Land, the principal colonial outlet, waxed virtuous, and would have no more convicts, whether whitewashed or not, at any price. The colony would not have them at any price nor in any shape or form. Although pains were taken to explain that these were well-disposed "ticket-of-leave men," not convicts, their reception was violently opposed. A struggle ensued, but in the end the imperial government gave way, and the last convict ship sailed for Van Diemen's Land in 1852. While we cannot withhold approval of the course the colony adopted, there is no doubt that it was almost suicidal. Mr. Trollope, who visited Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1871, describes in graphic language the consequences to the colony of its conduct. Absolute stagnation and want of enterprise were everywhere apparent, the skeletons of great works in ruins, others half finished and doomed to decay for want of hands, land relapsing into uncultivation, towns deserted, grass growing in the streets—the whole place lifeless and inert. Possibly, if the question had been put at another time the answer might havebeen different. But in 1850, the discomforts entailed by transportation were so recent and disagreeable, that free colonists could not be brought to believe that by a better system of administration such evils might be altogether avoided.
Nor were the people of Van Diemen's Land singular in their resolve. Even before they had in plain language so declined, other colonies had displayed a similar unmistakable reluctance to become receptacles for convicts. As early as 1848, the British government, in search of new fields for transportation, had addressed a circular to all colonial governors, pointing out in persuasive periods, the advantages to be gained by accepting this valuable labour which, nevertheless, no one cared to have. Strange to say, only one colony—that of Western Australia—replied affirmatively to this appeal. At the Cape of Good Hope, the appearance of the convict shipNeptune, from Bermuda, in September, 1849, produced a tumultuous and indignant protest. The moment her arrival was signalled, the church bells began to toll half-minute time, and a public notice was put forth by the anti-convict association, calling on the people to be calm. At the same time the municipal commissioners addressed the governor, Sir Harry Smith, begging that theNeptunemight be forthwith ordered to leave the shores of the Cape. "The convicts," they said, "must not, cannot, and shall not be landed or kept in any of the ports of the colony." Sir Harry's answer wasthat he must carry out his orders; upon which the people drew a cordon round the ship and cut off supplies from Government House, so that His Excellency could get no meat, and had to bake his own bread. Finally, he agreed to compromise, and theNeptunewas allowed to remain in the bay till a vessel could be sent home for instructions. The authorities at home considered the opposition at the Cape too serious to be resisted, and directed theNeptuneto proceed elsewhere.
At other places the bent of the colonial mind made itself equally unmistakable, so that it was at length openly announced in the House of Commons, that unless the colonies grew more amenable, transportation must cease.
As all these various questions covered a period of several years, it can hardly be said that the crisis which necessitated change came suddenly or all at once. The government was loath to surrender till the very last the idea of maintaining the existing system or something like it, but they were not without fair warning that they were building on hopes delusive and insecure. And it is evident that throughout the period of doubt they gave the question the most anxious care, although the evident disposition was more towards tinkering up what was rickety and useless, than substituting a radically new plan. To this, no doubt, they were in a measure forced. The mere idea of retaining a large mass of convicts at home was hailed by the publicwith alarm; and it became almost an axiom that offenders sooner or later, but as a rule inevitably, must be banished from the country. This was long the underlying principle of every scheme. The convicts must be removed to a distance, not necessarily as a punishment—it might be as a boon to themselves—but in any case as a benefit to their country. In point of symmetry the method is undoubtedly admirable; theoretically perfect now as it was then. The assisted emigration of discharged prisoners supplies the easiest means of providing them with that honest labour which is theoretically supposed to preserve them from a relapse into crime. But whether as freemen, exiles, or convicts in chains, they were all indelibly branded with the stigma of their guilt, and we cannot even now find a country ready to receive them. At the time indicated, the resolute attitude of all the colonies compelled England to reconsider her position. She was forced, in fact, though sorely against her will, to make the best of a bad bargain and keep nearly all her convicts at home.
Over-sea prisons continued till late date at Bermuda and Gibraltar—Major Griffiths' personal connection with Gibraltar—Called to supreme control by threatened outbreak—His association with convicts—Their demeanour and characteristics—His difficulties in administration—Curious cases—False confessions—Sea-captain who had cast away his ship—Ingenious and daring attempts to escape—A vanishing specimen of prisoner—The gentleman convict—The forbidden weed.
Over-sea prisons continued till late date at Bermuda and Gibraltar—Major Griffiths' personal connection with Gibraltar—Called to supreme control by threatened outbreak—His association with convicts—Their demeanour and characteristics—His difficulties in administration—Curious cases—False confessions—Sea-captain who had cast away his ship—Ingenious and daring attempts to escape—A vanishing specimen of prisoner—The gentleman convict—The forbidden weed.
When the British colonies with sturdy, independent spirit refused almost unanimously to be the receptacle for the criminal sewage of the mother country, it became of paramount importance to find other outlets of disposal. The perfected system of penal servitude now in force was of slow growth, and at the beginning many places were utilised that could voice no protest. Two isolated strongholds, Bermuda and Gibraltar, were pressed into service without question; they were both crown possessions at the mercy of the authorities and plausible reasons could be offered for turning them into convict prisons. They were at no great distance, easily accessible by sea, and could very nearly guarantee safecustody. Then the labour of the prisoners would be available there for defensive purposes and colonial development. In both places many monuments to their skill and industry are still preserved; both are decisive points in the national strategy; one at least has a glorious history and the other may any day prove of signal value to the ocean communications of Great Britain.
It was my fortune to be closely associated with the convict prison of the so-called impregnable fortress of Gibraltar, which was for some time under my personal supervision, and I had abundant opportunities for observing the traits and peculiarities of identically the same classes as those who have provided the materials for the historical chapters already compiled.
My call to functions of control came with dramatic suddenness and surprise. I was plunged into the middle of new and strange surroundings without a word of warning. There had been two outbreaks at the prison, where a weak executive had broken down and a collection of turbulent characters was encouraged to oppose and defy authority. An outbreak was imminent at any moment, I was told, as I galloped up to the scene of disturbance and proceeded to take charge. I might indeed have been at Port Arthur or Norfolk Island, but for the comforting reflection that above me the guns of the fortress showed their formidable teeth, tier above tier, and that several thousands of the best troops in theworld were within easy reach to check peremptorily any breach of the peace.
The likeness might have been carried further, for there were many among the convicts who had made the dread voyage across to the Southern Hemisphere, who had been in the chain gangs and in assigned service,—veteran survivors of the dark days of transportation and the makeshifts that replaced it. Five hundred paraded for my inspection, and as I slowly walked down the ranks I made my first acquaintance with the physiognomy and demeanour of felons. Many exhibited the peculiar features now commonly assigned to them by the criminologists; the lowering brow, the prognathous jaw, the handle-shaped ear. These were largely the born criminals of the great Italian savant Professor Lombroso, "having projecting ears, thick hair, thin beards, prominent frontal eminences, enormous jaws, square protruding chins, large cheek bones, and frequent gesticulations." I may note the description of another observer. "Their cringing and timid ways," he says, "the mobility and cunning of their looks; a something feline about them, something cowardly humble, suppliant and crushed, makes them a class apart,—one would say dogs who had been whipped; with here and there a few energetic and brutal heads of rebels."
I cannot say that the submissive air was greatly noticeable, when I first saw them. They might have been a pirate's or a slaver's crew; their costume wasnautical, a tarpaulin hat, round jacket, wide duck trousers and low shoes. Their faces were mostly unpleasing; their tone and demeanour were arrogant and aggressive. They held their heads high and looked me insolently in the face. I could see plainly that the bonds of discipline had been relaxed, and that there had been no firm hand on them of late; indeed it was the mental failure of my predecessor which had brought me there in his place to try my prentice hand upon a (to me) new and unruly team. No doubt there were many grievances abroad among them. The old comptroller, as the supreme chief was styled, had introduced many irksome regulations and at the same time withdrawn many small privileges and indulgences that had come to be looked upon as a right and were much missed. What would be my attitude toward my charges? It was quite evident that from the moment I appeared I became the cynosure of every eye. Every one was watching me closely, curiously, seeking to make out what kind of man I was.
We soon grew better acquainted. A prominent part of my new duties was to give a personal interview to any convict who applied. I found that afternoon that almost every one had put his name down to see me, and presently I took my seat in the chair of authority, without the smallest previous knowledge, to listen to complaints, grant requests and answer questions of the most intricate kind. I soon found that I was quite unable to deal with mattersso entirely new to me. I had hardly a word to say. The only possible course was to acquire knowledge without delay. Laying hands on all the authorities available, books of rules, standing orders, printed circulars, official correspondence—I retired to the comptroller's house, where my servants had made me up a rough and ready home. I studied the voluminous mass of details far into the night, every spare minute the next day and again late into the next night. I worked on, conning my lesson diligently, painfully, but with ultimate success. By the third day, Monday, when the applicants again paraded, their numbers already largely increased, I was in a position to dispose pretty summarily of all but the most complicated affairs.
It was in these interviews, which were accorded in private if so desired, that I first gained an insight into convict character, its guilefulness, its duplicity, its infinite art in seeking to gain the ends in view; to evade or modify the regulations, often harsh enough, to secure a modicum of comfort, an atom more food, lighter and less irksome labour, a little sympathy in listening to a "case" and obtain support for a petition to have a trial revised and secure pardon or mitigation of sentence. As a newcomer and absolute tyro, I was held fair game by every specious impostor, who could "pitch" a harrowing, heart-rending tale. I was victimised very early by the curious craze of the criminal mind for false confession, guilt assumed, without a shadow of proof,for short-lived glorification or a period of idleness while investigation was in progress.
One of the first cases of this kind made an extraordinary impression on me. I was entirely befooled. The play was so well acted by such finished performers that in my inexperienced innocence I was easily carried away. A convict whom I will style X came to me with tears in his eyes, evidently under the influence of the strangest emotion, and asked to speak to me alone. He desired to give himself up as the real perpetrator of a certain atrocious crime, a murder in the city of London which had hitherto baffled detection. He was a tall man with a long yellow face set in coal black, stubby hair, and with baleful black eyes, deep set under bushy black eyebrows. He was in the most agitated state of mind. Remorse most profound and agonising possessed him as he poured forth his piteous tale and enlarged upon the horrible details of the murder. It was impossible not to yield him full credit. If I had any doubt, it would have been removed when his accomplice whom he betrayed was brought in. I will call him Y.
A second scene was now enacted,—a duologue with the parts in strange contrast. X denounced his companion with virtuous indignation. Y altogether repudiated the charge. The first told his story with all the realism of manifest truth. The second denied it as stoutly as he could, but I seemed to see the half-heartedness of conscious guilt. Ywas a weaker vessel; a round faced, chubby looking man, smug, self-sufficient, inclined to be off-hand and jaunty as he faced me giving the lie to his accuser. For a long time he fought, but with failing force before the insistence of his opponent. Then, all at once, he threw up the sponge. Yes; it was all quite true. They had killed the poor old woman, the bank caretaker, had brained her with a knuckle-duster, and then stabbed her to the heart.
My course was plain. I was bound to report the strange story to my superiors and ask for instructions. The two convicts were held strictly apart, lodged in separate cells, given writing materials and required to set forth their confessions at length, which were forwarded to England. An answer came in due course. There was not one syllable of truth in the story. Neither X nor Y had been within a hundred miles of the scene of the crime. One of them, indeed, was actually at the time in prison for another offence. They had heard of the crime, had put their heads together while on the works where they laboured in association, and had concocted the whole fraud by which I had been so completely misled. This was the first spurious confession that had come within my purview, but by no means the last. The practice is common enough among criminals, both inside and outside the prison. The reasons are generally the same. The convict, as in this case, hopes to be remanded for a new trial, and to lead an idle life while awaiting it.
The inexperienced prison officer is very apt, and not strangely, to be imposed upon also by eloquent and persistent protestations of innocence. No one is guilty in gaol. A Frenchaumônier, "chaplain," once called upon his congregation in the prison chapel to answer him honestly and truthfully, by holding up their hands, whether they acknowledged the justice of their conviction. Only one hand was held up in response. I was as gullible as any other beginner until repeated disappointment hardened my heart. One of the first cases that worked a change was that of the coxswain of my gig. It was a smart little craft, the favourite plaything of my predecessor, who had manned it with a crew of convicts dressed like men-of-war's men, and the coxswain was an ex-master mariner, who had earned a long sentence for casting away his ship. W, the man in question, and I became very good friends. He was a neat, civil spoken, well conducted sailor, and I weakly let him see that I took an interest in him. He came to me on an early occasion praying that his case might be reconsidered. He assured me that he had been wrongfully convicted, the victim of a base plot fabricated and sworn to by some of his crew who hated him for ruling them with too tight a hand. There was not a word of truth in the charges brought against him, and if there were only a criminal court of appeal he would very speedily be released.
I confess I was won over by his speciouspleading. I liked the man and was sorry for him, and I promised to make a full inquiry. There was a file of the LondonTimeson the shelves of the Gibraltar garrison library and it was easy to turn to the number containing the full proceeding of the trial. All doubt was immediately dispelled, and I saw at the first glance that I had once more been imposed upon. The charge rested upon the clearest evidence, and the facts were proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. Captain W. had deliberately prepared his ship for destruction. It was shown that he had gone himself into the hold and had bored holes in the ship's side with an auger and scuttled her. She was cast away, and sank, but within reach of shore and of diving operations, which proclaimed the criminal ill-treatment of her skipper, to whom the possession and use of the augers were distinctly brought home. The evil intention was further shown by the valueless cargo shipped and the large amount for which it had been insured. After my experience with X, I rather slackened in my excessive sympathy with my unfortunate charges and was prepared to believe that they had had as much fair play as comes to most of us in this crooked world.
The fate which eventually overtook this gig and its convict crew well illustrates the difficulties of management in an oversea prison in near proximity to a foreign country. Spain is within a stone's throw of Gibraltar, and at the time of which I amwriting there was no extradition of criminals. The question was complicated by the British reluctance to give up political refugees, and Spain would make no difference between classes. No treaty of extradition was possible which did not extend to all, and the convict at Gibraltar was well aware that he was safe if he set foot on Spanish soil. These facts were known in the prison, for local convicts were also confined there, and they could one and all see the Spanish shore a few miles away. There was always the chance of seizing a boat and escaping to the other side of the bay.
On one occasion a ship's cutter was seized and the fugitives made off. The warning gun was fired, the flag was run up at the yard-arm on the signal station on the top of the rock, and the alarm given at the dockyard. Some one immediately ordered out the convict gig to go in pursuit with an armed escort. The crew bent manfully to their oars and quickly overhauled the chase, but by this time they were half way across the bay. The temptation was too strong for loyalty. The crew of the gig rose upon the warder, disarmed him and consigning him to the bottom of the boat, carried it and him to Algeciras, where all parties landed without let or hindrance. The Spanish authorities were by no means overjoyed at the arrival of these desperadoes, but would not arrest them. They took to the wild hill country around and were a terror to quiet folk until they were gradually taken up fornew offences or were shot down by thequadras civiles.
Escape was the dazzling lure before the eyes of the Gibraltar convicts and more than one ardent spirit strove to compass it. The patience and ingenuity exhibited by one man was really marvellous. He was employed alone in a remote workshop and had discovered that it communicated with one of the hollows or caves with which the great oolitic rock is honeycombed. In this he had constructed and kept concealed a boat built of the nondescript materials that came to his hand—scraps of canvas, disused cement bags and small pieces of timber. It was not unlike a collapsible boat, in three separate compartments for convenience of carriage, which could be made into one tiny dingy or coracle sufficient to keep one man afloat. He expected to be able to launch this fragile craft unobserved, choosing a favourable opportunity, and to commit himself to the waters of the Straits of Gibraltar, a narrow passage ever crowded with shipping, where he hoped to be picked up by some craft. He had laid by a store of provisions saved from his meagre rations, which he carried out daily from the prison. It was his abstraction of food that betrayed him to a jealous comrade, who treacherously gave him away and led to the detection of his undoubtedly clever scheme. The intensity of his disappointment when discovered was quite pathetic.
A seemingly much more serious affair was a plotset on foot for a combined attempt to break prison after rising upon the guards. When the matter was reported to me, it had all the aspect of a dangerous conspiracy and it imposed upon me, but I have reason now to think it was all a hoax. Convicts have no loyalty to each other and their best laid plans "gang aft agley," for the secret is rarely kept. Some one usually turns traitor. The scheme is at times a pure invention devised by some astute prisoner seeking to curry favour by his revelations to the authorities. If it has any foundation in fact, there is a race between the traitors, each anxious to be the first in betrayal and thus render himself safe.
On this occasion the dread news was broken by picking up an anonymous letter giving the particulars of the coming disturbance. Then came a very confidential message from a patient in the hospital whom I visited and who gave me some startling news. A deep laid conspiracy was afoot to rise while at work in a distant quarry, to overmaster warders and military guards and march straight on board the admiralty brig employed to remove the heavily laden lighters from the quarry. To cast her loose would be the work of a moment, and with steam up she might be taken across the bay before the alarm could be given and pursuit organised. The whole story seemed far-fetched but I could not ignore the warning. Upon my requisition to the military authorities, the guards were reinforced. They loaded ostentatiously beforemarching to the quarry, and on arrival there it was found that the steam tug was absent on some other duty. There was no outbreak, nor the semblance of one. The turbulent spirits were cowed at this exhibition of formidable strength, if indeed there were any who had contemplated mischief.
I must add a few words to the general description of the personnel of the Gibraltar convict prisoners. They were interesting to me, many of them as the survivors of the great tide of criminal exiles that turned for years toward the antipodes. They were to be easily recognised by those who had the key; their swarthy, weather-beaten complexions spoke of long exposure to trying climates. They were hardy in aspect, with muscular, well-knit frames, developed by much manual labour in the open air. They had the bold, self-reliant, reckless demeanour of men who had endured severe discipline and passed through it unbroken. They were hard, bitter men, who had faced the worst and were willing to do it again. Quarrelsome and of hasty temper, they might be cowed into good order, but were ever ready to break out and resist authority, to assault a warder or strike down a fellow convict with pick or shovel, or the first weapon that lay to hand. The type was entirely new to me then, and indeed I have seen little of it since, for they were a fast vanishing species and are to be met with no more in the prison population.
I will pick out one or two for more particularmention. One who was hopelessly "incorrigible," for instance, I will call H. This man happened to be in one of his periodical, almost chronic fits of rage on my first visit to the prison. My way had taken me across a drawbridge leading from the line wall road to the top of a winding staircase that descended to an inner gate which led straight into the main body of the prison. This main prison, by the way, was little better than a shed,—a long, low, two-storied wooden edifice, divided into bunks or cages shut off from each other and a central passage by iron bars. This building was filled with human beings, and, as we approached, the ceaseless hum of voices, angry and even menacing, rose from it into one piercing note, a yell or shriek of wild, or, it might be, maniacal, despair. We were told that it was H, who had broken out again and was now in a separate cell, and were asked if we would like to see him.
They took us through a detached block of strongly built stone cells in their own yard lying close under the line wall, and by this time the noise became almost deafening. Each cell had two doors; an outer door of stout iron bars, protecting an inner one of wood. The bolt of this second door was thrown back and exposed the interior. At that moment a mad figure rushed forward with frightful imprecations, to be checked, fortunately, by the outer iron gate; a wild and terrible beast, human only in form, clad in a hideous particoloured garb,the badge of those who had made a murderous assault on their guardians. He stood raving and raging impotently, threatening us with fluent vituperative tongue to the accompaniment of clanking chains. He was in leg irons and was also manacled with "figure eight" handcuffs on his wrists, and so could do no injury even to himself.
This H was one of a class who presently became a danger to London and complicated the penal question by the alleged inadequacy of the punishment. He was a man of cruel and ungovernable temper, addicted to crimes of violence, who ill-used as well as robbed his victims. There were others like him at Gibraltar, but none that equalled him in his savagery and determined defiance of authority. Nothing seemed to tame him; prolonged doses of dieting, punishment and cellular isolation had no effect. He continued intractable to the last, and was one of those withdrawn and brought home to England three years later when the Gibraltar convict prison was abolished.
"Captain" P.—titular rank is generally preserved among prisoners when speaking of or to each other—was of a different kind, irreconcilable also, but his resistance was rather moral than physical. He was always surly, sulky and impudent; inclined to be disobedient, but keeping within the line of sharp reprimands. I remember him as a smooth-speaking, supple-backed, cringing creature, anxious to show that he had been well-bred and that he hadoccupied a superior station, but dropping all at once into the other extreme if crossed or offended, when his language was of the foulest and his manner disgusting. I met "Captain" P. again under rather amusing circumstances. One afternoon when standing among my gangs at work upon the foundation of the new Wormwood Scrubs prison, I saw a well-dressed, gentlemanly looking man approach under escort of the gate keeper. He wore a well-cut frock and a shining silk hat, which he lifted courteously as he bowed low, to the manifest delight of some of the convicts around. They knew him well. It was "Captain" P. who had been an old comrade in Portland or Dartmoor, and who, now a free man, had impudently decided to pay me a formal call. He addressed me as an old friend, saying: "You were always so good to me when I served under your orders at Gibraltar" (it might have been in some distinguished cavalry regiment) "that I have ventured to intrude upon you to ask if you can help me to some employment." I am afraid I answered rather curtly and ordered him to be shown out of the enclosure. Had he been a different man, penitent and well-disposed, with a blameless prison character, and determined to turn over a new leaf, I would gladly have given him a helping hand. But there had been a second sentence since the term at Gibraltar, and I soon learned that he was a hardened, habitual criminal. Oddly enough, at the very time of his visit, a friend was standing with me whoknew him personally in previous days, when he was a captain in the British army and came to grief over a forged check.
Life in a colonial convict prison was not eventful, and yet not monotonous. Some of the more startling episodes have been recounted. The chase for tobacco constantly kept us busy. Its use is strictly tabooed in British prisons, but the forbidden weed will always find its way inside. Nothing will check its introduction, and its presence is proved by the fact that tobacco has a regular price in articles of food, the only possible circulating medium. The traffic depends upon the dishonesty of officials, who are bribed by prisoners' friends to pass it in, the safe keeping and distribution being the work of the prisoners themselves. At Gibraltar, where "free" people came and went in the quarries almost unquestioned, large transactions were constantly afoot. The new arrivals brought out cash and the "traffickers" were clever in finding hiding places in the rock for the money offered and the weed when bought. We made many searches for both the raw material and its price, and I can call to mind long watches in the night for the agents who brought in the stuff, and elaborate devices to catch the culprits in actual possession of the forbidden weed.
A few months spent in this varied fashion was no bad preparation for the new career on which I was about to embark. I was called to service in the home department, and during many years wasclosely associated with the entire penal system of Great Britain. From small beginnings, devised under the pressure of great emergency, these experiments have grown into the present system of secondary punishment. Opinions differ as to its value and merits, but these will best be judged by independent critics on learning what measures were adopted upon the cessation of penal exile, and what grew out of them.