THE OLD SUCCESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2356, 20 April 1899, Page 59

THE OLD SUCCESS.

By Dinoexis.

— » — A RELIC OF CONVICT LIFE IN THE "FIFTIES."

I have just returned from a visit to " the convict ship," now on exhibition in Leith Hurbour — -i floating chamber of horrors, reminding us vividly of the terrors of "hulk" life in the " fifties." The stout old Success is a ship with a lot of history clinging to it, though, of course, it is in regard to the period when she was used a3 a prison hulk that the public arc chiefly interested. Built at Moulmein, British India, the Success left the slips in 1790, and sailed during her ejrly years betAveen the Indies and England as a first-cldss armed merchantman. She is built of teak wood throughout, and must be one of Hie very oldest vessek afloat; but one of her present officers assured me thafc the hull is as sound and seaworthy as ever it was, and the original mainmast still stands. The Success became in time an immigrant ship, and later was bought by the Victcrian Government and converted into' a -prison hulk in 1851. After the abolition of Hie hulk system in 1859, the vessel was utilised as a prison for refractory seamen until 1865, afterwards serving as a woman's prison, ihen used as a place of punishment for " rebellious training-ship boys," and was finally turned into a store hulk for the Victorian Defence department. For obvious reasons, the sight of this remarkable Miip must have been obnoxious to many; a large section of tho public wished these undesirable memorials of the past (there were five hulks in all) put out of existence. To satisfy this demand, the whole flotilla was exposed for sale by auction, the buyers to bind themselves to break the hulks up, plank for plank. With the others tin's came to pass, but owing to an oversight, the clause embodying this part of the bargain was omitted in the case of the Success. Thus it came to be possible for her to be fitted up with her "present '•accessories *' and exhibited as hhe has been up to date in Australian and British porl«. Everywhere she has been visited b} r crowds of interested sightseers, amongst them some at least of those who in the old days "did time" on board.

In Sydney Harbour the Success was -scuttled by "malicious persons unknown," but that incident only put the no doubt sore reminder out of sight for a brief f-pace. She sailed from Australia in ballast, taking about five months on the voyage, and though the weather experienced was "pretty bad." the old phip stood it well.

Upon stepping on board, the first object likely to attract the eye is a waxen figure of Harry Power, the once notorious" bushranger. He was a convict on board during almost the entire period that the Success served as a hulk. The model is seated inside a monkey-like cage arrangement on the upper deck, and has a very respectable hat ami a good suit of clothes on. We are impressed with the idea that Power must have carried at least a comb and brush with him to the bush. Later, we find that this figure represents Power at a period when he had long given up criminal courses, and, in fact, he took in 1890 an engagement on board tlu Success when it was fitted up as a museum. He remained with 'her for several months, proving a great "draw" in attracting the public ; but at Sydney he went ashore on leave and drowned himself in the Murray River. i>t Swan Hill.

There is another eftigy of Power in a cell below, which represents him as he appeared in early life while doing a term of 14 years for horsestealing. For crimes committed later, lie got other 15 years to do, and for implication in the "Melville Rush," when two wardeis were murdered, he was sentenced to death, but got a reprieve. Harry Power was a great "stiekerup" of gold escorts, etc., in his day, but was credited with the exercise of kindness and courtesy towards women and children during his exploits. He was captured, after an exciting pursuit, in a sscret ctvve in the mountains.

The two lever decks are Jined .Voai end to end with prison e.->]ld, small, dismal holes compared with which "apartments*" in a modem gaol are as perfect dwelling places. I have never been inside the latter, but everyo:i3 knows that in them at least decency, lighting, and ventilation are carefully provided for In these sli,p' cells one can #ea at a olaof*. th-j* tins reverse torditfons

were aimed at and attained. These hideous little dungeons were absolutely unprovided for sanatorially, while a faint gleam of light only came through between thick and close-set iron bars abov6 the door. By the same route foul air struggled out, and fresh air, if there was any, tried to get in. These vilo dens were designed for prisoners condemned to do "solitary." Others, slightly larger, held three good conduct convicts, and had iron bar gates about 2ft in width. Here each convict had a blanket to make himself happy and comfortable with, and the trio could ever, have a little recreation in the way of card-playing, etc., if a decently good-humoured warder chanced to be o'i duty. How did they get the cards? Not from Goodal. certainly, for they made their own. In a glazed frame is shown a set of convict-made playing-cards, fabricated from Scripture text-cards given by the visiting chaplain of the convict fleet. Some of the cells are open-doored and empty, while a great many are tenanted by' waxen effigies of former inhabitants of note. Worst of all, however, are the dark cells, especially the "refractory cell," which is worse even than its 'condemned" neighbour. I tried a few minutes' solitary incarceration in the refractory's inky darkness myself, bub one does not realise the thing that waj. To do it properly, one would need to be put in and forgotten for a night or so. Smaller by about two-thirds than the others, the refractory cell floor is 2ft Bin broad, though at the roof it is a little broader owing to the outward slope of the vessel's side. In this coffin-like den, then, was no more than room to squat, but to do even that was prevented. Here refractory subjects were confined for periods varying from 1 to 28 days, and kept en bread and water all the time. Light was entirely excluded, and air almost as completely. The victim was not allowed to lie down for a moment in thp [ cramped j-p.ice available, an ingenious ar- : rangenient of masaive irons being an fixed ■ about his body and limbs as to keep him in a stooping posture all the time. In this fearful place it was nothing unusual for hardened criminals to go raving mad. while what is more remarkable, some endured it ' repeatedly and survived in reason and life. | The pfllgy of one such occupies a eell — a black man, but a native of Cardiff, in I Wales, who for arson was sent to do 1Q j years' penal in Van Dieman's L:iud. He. I escaped to Victoria, and in 1853 was arres- | 1-ed with two others for "slieking-up" par- [ ties going to the goldnelds. In virtue of being an escaped convict, a- sentence of 22 | years was given him. He was in tho gang | when Captain Price was murdered, and whs. | tried with, others for that crime, bi:t w.is I acquitted. "After serving a long sentence with as much solitary as would have killed a do^en others, he was transferred to Pentridge, where he served the remaining part and became fr^s."' The ship's offirtr bei fore mentioned <o!d me that this old | fioman .still Ibes, thfcfc he has n, flourishing i drapery business in a chief Attrtralian city, [ >.-,id that he makes no attempt at secrecy regarding his -early life. While the ve«sel was on view i* Australian waters he came aboard, avowedly as an " old timer come back after many years to view Id's erstwhile quarters. He seemed to look upon the episode as being a likely advert is?ment for his business, and was greatly amused at the interest excited by his presence. One can almost imagine this old chap birring a model of the Success made to stand under a glass shade in his best parlour. It is told of a great potentate of olden times that, during pageurves, he cauc-ed nmri to come behind, him calling out, " Rcme.nber,. Thou art but a man," because lie v/as in danger of believing himself to be a god; and why should >ioc nn "old lag" grown respectable, have at- least a souvenir : to lemirid him of his very different past?

But in ;»ll this gftchering together of wh-it may be called the antiquities of hulk life (the ship is festooned " with fetters, handculTs. weapons, etc.), there are few articles th.it can do otherwise than excite horror. Here, among other th-ngs, is the cat-o-nine-tails. it.-s cruel thongs bound in brass wire and tipped liberally with leaden pellets. It was used freely on boerd during tlie yeiira gone by, the meun spirited convict who .-i-jted as i'"ngoll:>tor being allowed Is 9d a day and promihtd a reduction of sentence "for services rendered.' Not far oft' are the triangles, to which the prisoner had his wrists and ankles strapped while being flogged. An officer stood by to seeOia'i/ th 6 reparation of the tails, known as '"the combing of the ':at, M was attended to. Sometimes half a minute's pause between blows was ordered, to give the victim plenty of time to properly appreciate what he was receiving.

The convict who acted the part of chief flagellator on board the Success, a despicable villain, was afterwards shot dead in Melbourne by one who had had the ile?h torn off lm bones and took a murderous method of showing his dislike to the process. The crime was committed in daylight in the .street, but the assassin got clear asvav.

Among other things that must have appeared very like unto blessings in disguises to the convicts were such appliances as the necklets, the compulsory bath, and the tiger's den. Into the tiger's den, a place on the lower deck barred of! like a menagerie cage, such convicts as could not icfiain from quarrelling were put, with the usual result that the weaker ones got their pas-ages to the next world effectively hastened. Whea the "timers" made too much uproar, tlir sentries blazed away at them with blank cartridge between tho b-irs. In another part of the ship is the prison chapel, a place built on similar lines to the tigers' den. In it the good conduct convicts were mustered on Sundays, the door being securely bolted and padlocked. The chaplain then stood outside and discoursed upon the beauty of Christian charity, which sent <i man to the hulks for 10 years for stealing a pie or .'.hooting a rabbit, and thus often turned decent men into outlaws, lunatics, and muiderers..

To the worht class of convicts, the compulsory b-ith must no doubt have been a secular innovation of a most unwelcome .ort. No matter how unpropitious the weather or how unwishful to be washed t ! ie victim, mhe had to go. The bath is a heavy, j^mber vafc unoa t£e upper deck. Tt

is about sft in length and 3ft in breadth, and sft or 6ft deep. Half of the interior is occupied by a rnossive wooden beam sloping from the deck at an angle of about 30deg, but whether this is "an accident of naval construction or was used to lay the convict out upor while he was being scrubbed, I have not ascertained.

The scrubbing was done by a couple of warders armed with brushes, and seawater was pumped liberally upon the howling v retch meanwhile. If he became too demonstrative in the expression of his aversion to the cleansing process, a heavy iron grating was dropped down on top of him. Sometimes he was left so for a few hours, and sometimes — if report lie not — he was taken out dead. A victim of oversight, of course, but oversight is said to have usually done awaj w'th the right man ! Many of the oellt, contain what o.re called " life-like effigies of the notorious convicts," who formerly occupied ihem. There are several groups, one of which shows the Kelly Gang, but they were never üboprd the >3uccess. Another shows iv realistic style how Captain Price was done to death by three dozen convicts maddened by the manifold brutalities of his behaviour towards them. I never could take waxworks seriously myself, but it evidently was not so with the half drunk visitor whose feelings impelled him to smash Captain Price's effigy with an umbrella, a freak which cost the drunk one a stiffish fine and costs, and put said effigy out o* circulation, for the time. Among the original fittings still intact, or nearly so, are the necklets. These arc composed of a strong iron bar running along near the deck, to which the convict's feet wore heavily ironed : and another but about chin high, with iron collars fj ittached, whkh locked round the i"V~ convict's neck. Behind his back his ham's were so deftly clamped by aid of figure - — - handcuffs that even the devil would (*» ) have found it no easy task to devise <imischief for those idle hands to do. The Success necklets held four or five prisoners, over whom stood an officer with loaded carbine for the discouragement of useless conversation. Among the numerous interesting exhibits rhere are a few things that need not be taken seriously: chief of these being the alleged "armour" of Ned Kelly, head of the villainous Kelly gang. It weighs nearly 1001b, and the experience of the blacksmith who made it could never have gone far beyond stove-pipe work. The whole suit looks to have "been suggested by a portable washing boiler, only the metal used is a great, deal thicker. The mail includes a body garment, with arm holes, thigh tubes, and a sort of visional helmet open atop to the free blowing breezes. The whole sefcmt looks like an exaggerated chimney -cowl. How the villfsiuoas bushranger could have jpappled with a hungry flea employed betwi:tr Ins shoulders is not easy to determine. That, he could have handled a gun with any degree of precision when clad in such duds is simply incredible, and those who are running the Success would do well to c*-op this particular property overboard. The numerous guns, pistols, bayonets, swords, legirons, vristirons, chains, punishment balls, bodyirons. etc.. etc., may or may nofc have belonged to the .Success. It matters little, for it is the hulk as a hulk and its intrinsic, not extrinsic, fittings that arouse interest. The. whole fit-out has a sufficient air of authenticity about it to impress the visitor with the horrors of prison life under the old regime. The men who suffered here in chains and necklets and darkness might have beeji vile criminals — sometimes no doubt they were st. — but one can hardly help thinking thai some of those who designed these punishments and tortures were largely dashed with criminality themselves. Some of the men who became notorious ringleaders in the frequent murderous outbreaks on the hulks and on shore had been transported for merely venial offences. Take, for instance, such a one as " Captain " Melville, leader of the "Melville Rush." in 1855, when two warders were murdered. Melville's original offence v/as the theft of a potato pie from a country man's cart ! At the present time lie might have had a week's imprisonment or been fined 10s, and even then some people would say the punishment was too severe, for when a man steals food he is likely to be in want and hungiy. Indeed, we. may cite an instance that occurred only a few weeks since, when the starving wife of an invalid husband stole a loaf of bread from a shop in London. Upon investigation, the magistrate, far from convicting, was deeply moved at the genuine tale of distress unfolded, and promptly caused measures to be adopted which ensured the comfort and relative happiness of the alleged delinquent and those dependent upon her. Fifty or 60 years since, for the same offence, this poor woman might have been sent to penal servitude, and had reason and life torn from her, perhaps, on this very hulk, for it was a woman's prison at one time.

It was at Paisley that Melville stole the pie and got his sentence of transportation. He escaped from a road " chain-gang.*' and became captain of a band of bushrangers which failed to muke of robbery a profitable bu.sine.ss. Melville had sentences in all amounting to 32 years set against his name, and a de;ith sentence on top of that! A remarkable fact, truly, when we remember that he strangled himself at the age of 26! He was a frequent sojourner in the refractory cell, and therein he finally did away with himself. As ringleader of the "rush"' that benrs his name, he was sentenced to death, but afterwards obtained a reprieve from the successful raising of a legal quibble. When, however, the officials went to inform him of this fact, they found him strangled with li! 3 own neckerchief.