TASMANIAN CONVICTS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1527, 21 November 1873, Page 24

TASMANIAN CONVICTS.

Mr Anthony Trollnpe, in his recent work, gives some interesting details regarding the penal establishment at Port Arthur. We extract the passage : The interest of such an establishment as this, of course, lies very much in tbe personal demeanour, in the words, and appearance of the prisoners, A man who has been all his life fighting against law, who has been always controlled, but never tamed, by law, is interesting, though inconvenient—as is a tiger. There were some dozen or fifteen men—perhaps more —whom we found inhabiting separate cells, and who were actually imprisoned. These were tho heroes of the place. There was an Irishman with one eye, named Doherty. who told us that for forty-two years he had never been a free man for an hour. He had been transported for mutiny when hardly more then a boy —for he had enlisted as a boy—and had since that time received nearly 3,000 lashes. In appearance he was a large man, and still powerful -well to look at, in spite of his eye, lost, as he told us, through the misery of a prison life. But lie said that he was broken at last. If they would only treat him kindly, he would be as a lamb. But within the last few weeks he had escaped, with three others, and had been brought back almost starved to death. The record of his prison life was frightful. He had been always escaping, always rebelling, always fighting against authority, and always being flogged. There had been a whole life of torment such as this—forty-two years of it; and there he stood, speaking softly, arguing his case well, and pleadiug, while the tears ran down his face, for some kindness, for some mercy in his old age. " I have tried to escape—always to escape," he said, " as a bird does out of a cage. Is that unnatural; is that a great crime ? " The man's first offence, that of mutiny, is not one at which the mind revolts. I did feel for him, and when he spoke of himself as a caged bird, I should have liked to take him out into the world and have given him a month of comfort. He would probably, however, have knocked my brains out on the first opportunity. I was assured that he was thoroughly bad, irredeemable, not to be reached by any kindness, a beast of prey, whose hand was against every honest man, and against whom it was necessary that every honest man should raise his hand. Yet he talked so gently and so well, and argued his own case with such winning words ! He was writing in a book when we entered his cell, and was engaged in some speculation a 3 to the tonnage of vessels. "Just scribbling, sir," he said, "to while away the hours."

There was another man, also an Irishman, named Ahem, whose appearance was as revolting as that of Doherty was prepossessing. He was there for an attempt to murder his wife, and had been re-tried and reconvicted. He was making shoes when we saw him, and had latterly become a reformed character. But for years his life had been absolutely the life of a caged beast, only with incidents more bestial than those of any beast. His jailers seemed to have no trust in his reformation. He, too, was a, large, powerful man, and he, to, will probably remain till he dies, in solitary confinement, or under the closest surveillance. In absolute infamy he was considered to be without a peer in the establishment. But he talked to us quite freely about his little accident with his wife. There was another remarkable man in one of the solitary cells, whose latter crime had been that of bringing abominable and false accusations against follow 1 prisoners. He talked for a while with us on the ordinary topics of the day, not disagreeably, expressing opinions somewhat averse to lonely existence, and not altogether in favor of the partiality of those who attended upon him. But he gave us to understand that though he was quite willing to answer questions in a pleasant, friendly way, it was his intention, before we left him, to make a speech. It was not every day that he had such an audience as a Prime Minister and an Attorney-General—not to speak of a Soli-citor-General from another colony, who was with us, also, or of the conimandant, or of myself. He made his speech—and I must here declare that all the prisoners were allowed to make speeches if they pleased. He made his speech—hitching his trousers with his left hand, as he threw out his right with emphatic gesture. I have longed for such ease and such fluency when, on occasions, I have been called upon to deliver myself of words upon my legs. It was his object to show that the effort of his life had been to improve the morals of the establishment, and that the commandant had repressed him, actuated solely by a delight in wickedness. And as he made his charge he pointed to the commandant with denouncing fingers, and we all listened with the gravest attention. I was wondering whether he thought he had made any impression. I forget that man's name, and his crime, but he ought to have been a great republican at home, aud should he ever get out from Port Arthur, might still do well to stand for a borough on anti-monarchical interests.

But of all the men the most singular in -his fate was another Irishman, one Barron, who lived in a little island all alone; and of all the modes of life into which such a man might fall, surely his was the most wonderful. To the extent of the island he was no prisoner at all, but might wander whither he liked, might go to ted when he pleased, and get up when he pleased, might bathe and catch fish, or cultivate his little flower garden—and was, in very truth, monarch of all he surveyed. Twice a week his rations were "brought to him, and in his disposal of them, no one interfered with him. But he surveyed nothing hut graves. All who died at Port Arthur, whether convicts or free, are buried there, and he has the task of burying them. He digs his graves, not fitfully and by hurried taskwork, but with thoughtful precisionhaying one always made for a Koman Catholic, and one for a Protestant inmate. In this regularity he was indeed acting against orders —as there was some prejudice against these ready-made graves, Jut he went on with his work, and war

too valuable in his vocation to incur serious interference. We talked with him for half an hour, and found him to be a sober, thoughtful, suspicious man", quite alive to the material inconveniences of bis position, but not the least afflicted by ghostly fear or sentimental tremors. He smiled wben we asked whether the graves awed him—but he shook his head when it was suggested to him that he might grow a few cabbages for his own use. He could eat nothing that grew from such soil. The flowers were very well, but a garden amongst graves was no garden for vegetables. He had been there for ten years, digging all the graves in absolute solitude, without being ill for a day. I asked him whether he was happy. No, he was not happy. He wanted to get away and work his passage to America, and begin life afresh, though he was sixty years old. He preferred digging graves, and solitude in the island, to tbe ordinary life of Port Arthur; he desired to remain in the island as long as he was a couvict; but he was of opinion that ten years of such work ought to have earned him his freedom. Why he was retained I forget. If I remember rightly, there had been no ! charge against him (luring these ten years. " You have no troubles here," I said. "I have great, troubles," he replied, j " when I walk about thinking'of my sins " There was no hypocrisy about him, nor I did lie in any way cringe to us. On the contrary, he was quiet, unobtrusive, and | moody. There lie is, stili living among the graves —still dreaming of some future career in life when, at last, they who have power over him shall let him go. Of the able-bodied men, the greatest number are at work about the farm, or on the land, or cutting timber, and seem to be subject to no closer surveillance than are ordinary laborers. There is nothing to prevent their escape—except the fact that they must starve in the bush if they do escape. There is plenty of room for them to starve in the bush even on Tasmau's Peninsula. Then when they have starved till they can starve no longer, they go back to the intolerable torment of a solitary cell. None but spirits so indomitable as that of the man Doherty will dare to repeat the agonies of escape above once or twice. There was a man named Fisher dying in the hospital, who had been one of those who had lately escaped with Doherty, and had, indeed, arranged the enterprise, and had gotten together the materials to form a canoe to carry them off. Before they started he had been possessed of £lO, which—so the officers said—he had slowly amassed by selling wine and spirits, which he had collected in some skin round his body, such wine and spirits having been administered to him by the doctor's orders, and having been received into the outer skin instead of taken to the comfort of the inner man. This, it was supposed, he had sold to the constables and warders, and so realized £lO. Now be was dying—and looked, indeed, as he lay on his bed, livid, with his eyes protruding from his head, as though he could not live another day. But it was known that he still had three of the ten sovereigns about him. " Why not take them away," I asked. " They are in his mouth, and he would swallow them if he were touched." Think of the man living—dying, with three sovereigns in his mouth, procured in such a way, for such a purpose, over so long a term of y ears —for the man must have been long an invalid to have been able to sell for £lO the wine which he ought to have drunk ! What a picture of life—what a picture of death—the man clinging to his remnant of useless wealth in such a fashion as that!