An Incident of the Convict Days.

Evening Post, Volume LV, Issue 101, 30 April 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

An Incident of the Convict Days.

Writes our London correspondent- — Major De Winton, a retired veteran of 74, who went out to the colonies in '43 with the 99th Regiment as commandant of tbe military guard on board the convict ship Constant, bound for the pennl colony of Van Diemen's Land, then governed by Sir John Franklin, and who hoisted the British flag on the spot where the town of Gladstone now stands, has just published, through the European Mail, his reminiscences of ' Soldiering Fifty Years Ago and Australia in the Forties ' The author gives , some interesting recollections of Colonels Jackson and Despard, Chief Justice Martin, Leichardt, Magistrate John Price and Sir Andrew Clarke, and Borne good stories, of which the following about Price, who was a bit of a wag, and had a way of bringing home to prisoners the relation between his sentences and their offences, is the best : — ' It may be readily believed that prisoners let out on paßa would occasionally exhibit their appreciation of freedom in a manner not in harmony with the courtesies of society. At one time they had a silly practice of calling out ' Hi !' whan seeing a sedate old gentleman walking before them, and on the gentleman turning round they would say 'That, slewed you.' Price, determined to put a stop to this class of facetiousness, instructed the police to bring the next offender before him. A case shortly occurring, the prisoner was put in the dock. Price suid to him, ' You are turned into government for a month.' ' What for, your worship?' 'Take him out!' tsaid Price, and. as ha wan just at the door Price said ' Hi !' and on the prisoner turning round, 'That slewed you.' The prisoner laughed in acknowledgment of the justice of his sentence, and went away quite quietly.' According to the Major, who held a command in Norfolk Island for three and a half yeara, this alleged ' hell upon earth ' was not the convict inferno depicted by Marcus Clarke in his novel ' For the Term f>f his Natural Life,' many of the situations therein described being, the Major says, to his knowledge absolutely impossible.