ACROSS THE TASMAN SEA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 47

ACROSS THE TASMAN SEA.

AN OCEAN HELL.

BY CIUAUKTTK.

Some little time has passed since you took a trip round Sydney harbour, and now, if your nerves are strong enough, I am going to ask you to accompany me on a visit to the old prison hulk Success. The hulk will only be on view for two weeks longer, and then report says it is to be taken to London to be run as a counter attraction to Madame Tussauds ; but whether this is the case or not remains to be seen.

It is a lovely moonlight night, but the air is cold, bo let us walls briskly to Circular Quay, where the old hnlk is moored. Stop a minute before we go on board and look around you. Thero is a ferry boat just in from North Shore, and people are pouring through the turnstiles like sheep through agate. Will they never stop coming? you ask as you watch the crowds ; yes— there is the last, a blind man with a concertina groping his way through. A theatre party have just met (.heir friends, and are chatting gaily under a

lamp, the girls with their heads shrouded in fleecy woollen wraps looking quite bewitching in the lamplight.

Now the Manly boat comes in and disgorges her passengers with their trophies of ferns and wild flowers. They rush helter skelter after buses and trams, while the conductors yell out the destinations of their respective vehicles at the tops of their voices — " George street, straight away," " Pitt street," " Bailway," " Paddington," &c, &c. All is noise and confusion — a fascinating living panorama ; and we feel loth to turn from it to that dark gruesome-looking mass close by. The sides are coated with mud, for the old hulk has been dragged up again from the bottom of the sea, where she went down ; sunk, it is said, by some of the convicts' descendants, who objected to see their ancestors on view.

We pay our shillings and pass up the gangway, and as we step on board a breath from the past seems to blow on us, and the words of Dante's " Inferno " sound in our ears-

Abandon hopa all ye who enter here.

The bulwarks are so high that we cannot see over them ; the whole ship is built of solid teak, and though 103 years old the wood is as sound and hard and dry as when she was first built. She is the last of the prisoQ ships, the other four — the' President, Lysacder, Sacremento, and Deborah — having been broken up. As we gaze wonderingly around at the ancient-looking vessel a little man in a top coat and silk hat begins in a parrot-like manner to describe the objects of interest. A small crowd gathers round and listens eagerly. Now and then he fixes one or other of us with his glassy eye and holds us enthralled. He ends up each sentence with the peculiar intonation of a High Church parson intoning the church service, and sometimes he loses his place and substitutes the vulgar tongue for the high- flown language which he employs io describing the commonest objects. First he show 3us the leg- irons which the wretched convicts always wore, and then the "punishment ball," weighing 721b, which was chained to the leg-irons, to be dragged after them, as a punishment for acts of insubordination. Then he conducts us to the "compulsory bath," a coffin-like arrangement in which refractory prisoners were dipped every morning, while water was pumped on them from beneath and warders with long-handled brushes stood above and scrubbed them. Then Ned Kelly's armour is displayed. It will be remembered that it was the work of a blacksmith, who contrived it out of pieces of a plough. It weighs 921b, and must have been rather an encumbrance than a protection to the notorious bushranger.

The officers' quarters and superintendent's office are all on the main deck, the officers' bath being a curious contrivance in the side of the ship, opening with a slip panel. Just over the forecastle were two sentry boxes, where two warders or policemen were constantly stationed for four hours' duty day and night to watch the gangs who went ashore to work in the quarries, and also to keep intruders within the prescribed limits. After inspecting the main deck we are conducted down a ladder to the middle deck, which, is partitioned off into about 40 cells running athwart the ship. Most of these were about 7ft by 7ft, and were intended to hold three men, the single cells being only 4ft by 7ft. The cells on this deck were for the better conducted prisoners whose sentences were of a lighter nature than those on the lower deck, and for those who worked ashore in the quarries after having served a term of two years in the lower cells. The atmosphere of the middle deck, even on this cold autumn night, seems to stifle us. What must it have been during the hot sultry months of the Australian summer, when the glaring sun poured down on the decks and the sparkling waters of the bay reflected back its rays, while the wretched convicts, huddled together like penned sheep, chafed and sweated in their irons, and dragged out their weary existence in this awful ocean hell I But the winter was worse still, for then they were nearly starved with cold. Confined in their narrows cells with barely room to move, they stamped and stamped behind their prison doors until they were away the boards beneath their feet in their vain efforts to keep warm ; how they must have longed for the time when the warder should come to let them out for the hour's exercise on deck. But there they had to stay, with their miserable thoughts for company, in titter darkness, some of them until all hope died within them, and they sank to a level little, if any, higher than that of beasts.

If they raised themselves up by their hands and caught hold of the iron bara at the top of their cells and tried to whisper to the inmate of the adjoining cell, they were punished for insubordination and made to wear the " necklet." This article of torture is a band of. iron, which the lecturer tells us was worn by the convicts for 24 houra at a time round their necks, while the chain attached fastened them to a beam, their hands meanwhile being confined behind their backs in a pair of figure 8 handcuffs, and their food being bread and water. He shows U3 the place where they stood, and w& touch the long row of necklets and gaze on the hand cuffs. " There were always plenty to fill them," he says ; and a vision of a row of stiffened muscles and aching limbs rises before us, and we turn from the horrid place with a shudder.

But there is worse to come, for after showing us " the tiger's den," a barred enclosure in which mad convicts were thrust, the dapper little lecturer conducts us down another ladder to the lowest hell. Here the pitchy darkness is relieved, or rather revealed, by sickly oil lamps. At one end, just at the bows, a brighter light is thrown on the waxen figure of Captain Price and " Gipsy Smith," a notorious convict who was executed in 18G1. At the other end of the lower deck is another group of figures showing the famous Kelly Gang. They were never on board the Success in life, but the group is supposed to be an extra attraction to| visitors. Ned Kelly, the leader of the gaag, ia depicted a3 a tall, handsome man of 27 ; Joe Byrne was only 21, and Sleeve Harl and young Kelly were aged respectively 20 and 18. The leader of the gang was executed in 1880, Joe Byrne was shot by the police °-^ a hotel bar while toasting "£»«***«£ fc o ™ c gang," and the two f~»&f} ?f? f 5? c *>™ h : rujgerji w><"- aa ™ death in the hotel

which the police had fired. Everyone seems interested in the " Kelly Gang," and we gaze silently on the lifelike group, arrayed in their everyday garments, standing in natural attitudes amongst the scrub. But soon our escort turns our attention to the "Black Hole," and as we look at the awful place our flesh creeps with horror. Our guide has, however, grown callous with frequent descriptions of this terrible place, and he tells us calmly how the poor wretches were chained to a ringbolt against its sloping side, so that they could neither sit nor stand nor lie ; but in a darkness that could be felt, and with bread and water for diet, they groaned in their agony or went raving ma'J. " None of them could stand it more than eight days except Melville," aays our lecturer, " and he had 28 days of it." This piece of barbarous cruelty cost Captain Price his life, for not long after it the convicts banded together and murdered him at the quarries. " Serve him jolly well right too," says one of our number. " Yes," says the lecturer, "he was the original of Captain Morris Bell in 'The Term of, His Natural Life '; " and then he tells us some more hideous'tales of this human fiend, until our hearts grow sick with horror and pity for the despairing wretches who fell into his power. ' " Now, who will go in there alone and let me shut the door?" says the little man with a smile. " Will you ? " and he pushes me gently forward and takes out his watch. " I will let you out in half a minute," ho says, and before I can refuse he has closed the heavy door, drawn the bolt, and I am alone with the ghost of a convict:. Oh I the horror of it I Now I know the meaning of " Darkness that can be felt," and henceforth I am a believer in Spiritualism, for did not the murderer's spirit pass before me, causing my flesh to creep and my hair to stand up with fright. "Let me out! let me out I" I yell in a frenzy of terror, and the memory of that moment will dwell with me to my dying | day. Ho wonder that strong men went mad in that awful torture chamber, and yet such things were done only 40 years ago 1 Oar conductor now escorts us all through [ the lower deck, making us peep through the iron bars of each cell in which the waxen figure of a convict stands. A bright gas jet lights up each cell and shows the features of the criminals in all their hideous sameness. I Receding foreheads and square jaws are the j prevailing characteristics, and some faces are i so fiendish that they make us start back in I terror from the bars. Seventy per cent, of them were murderers, and they were not likely to grow better on the Success. The lecturer gives a full account of each convict, and how be came to be on board the hulk. One grows weary of the recitals of orime, and a longing to escape from it all takes possession of us ; but no, we have paid our shilling and dare not insult the little man by refusing to hear him out to the bitter end, and so he tells about " Captain " Melvillo and the "Melville rusb," ho* they tried to escape and failed, and how they were punished for it ; how Melville tried to bite off a warder's nose, how another killed a warder with a sharpened spoon, and hugged yet another warder to death, and so on and so on ; and yet somehow when we look around at the leg-irons, the necklets, the flogging apparatus, the punishment belfc, the ball, the handcuffs, the refractory cells, and all the varied means of torture, our sympathies are all with the convicts 1

At laat the lecturer ceases, and once more we find ourselves on deck, and looking up at the star-bespangled heavens a feeling of thankf alness comes over us that the horrors we have heard of are things of the pasfc. The little lecturer chips off a bit of the hard teak the vessel is built of with his pocket knife, and presents us each with a piece as a relic ; then we pass down the gangway and bid adieu to the old hulk, and strive to shake off the feeling of sadness it has left with us as we say to ourselves, " Thank Qoi. there are no ocean hells now."

Bright's disease is one of the most deadly complaints that attack debilitated constitutions. Owing to over exertion and over consumption of nerve force, the system becomes gradually weakened and relaxation Bets in. The thin membranes of the kidneys are the first; to go, and medical authorities state that 50 per cent, of the deaths nowadays occur indirectly from Bright's disease, though the patients and their medical advisers never even suspected the presence of such a deadly foe. The function of the kidney is to separate the waste fluids from the blood, to purify it, and this process is carried on by what is termed by physiologists "osmosis." In weakened systems the membranes become relaxed, and the albumen of the blood finds it 3 way with the waste fluids through the kidney walls, and passes from the body with the urine, the patient's health and strength thus gradually failing. Beyond the presence of albumen in the water, albuminuria has not any positive symptoms; but: general weakness, which always leads to these serious disorders, always signifies its presence by special signs. You may got headache, spasmodic toothache, torturing neuralgia, pain in small of the back, disinclination to work, heavy, aching limbs on waking in the morning, bloodshot eyes, poor appetite, or constipation. These warning symptoms must not be neglected, or as sure as a rat hole will sink a ship, so sure will the patient's life be sacrificed. The remedy indicated is Clements Tonic ; this will restore all organs to a proper healthy state, and ensure correct performance of the processes of digestion, assimilation, perspiration, secretion, and elimination. Clements Tonic has a record of cures effected such as no other medicine ever secured, and we are willing to prove our representations by outside evidence. A case in point is that of C. Barber, Esq, f Wyman street, Broken Hill, who writea :— " I have been taking Clements Tonic with such wonderful results that I am induced as a mafcler of justice to send a plain statement of my case, which, you are at liberty to publish in the interests of similar sufferers. My complaint was poor and impure blood, inability to sleep, nervoua debility, poor appelifce, palpitation, giddiness, and the usual string of symptoms, getting no rest or peace from my misery night o^'day. After many other treatments b»d failed I was induced to try your Cl olGt ' n *s Tonic, of which I took nine JoHrf-ies, and I am glad fco stale that my fap»wa is perfectly restored, and I heartib- recommend it to all others who j-nir&v from the same cause. You are at liberty to make what use of this you like. — I remain, yours sincerely, Charles Barber, Wyman street, Broken Hill, New South Wales."

D

— Lady (to tramp) : " No, 1 sn«.u not give you anything. You look strong and hearu^, and well able to work." Tramp: "Ah, mum, you shouldn't judge people by their looks. I thought you looked a kind-hearteel, charitable lady, but I find you ain't 1 "

— Some people would think they were cheated if they had the measles lighter than then, •-jicrhbours.

— If anyDoiv-, potions cpeak louder than wordß they miut bo u.v-., r f the man who beats the big drum.