Fifty Years Under the Lash

Southern Cross, Volume 14, Issue 29, 15 September 1906, Page 3

Fifty Years Under the Lash

(By Charles White.) athor of '‘Australian Bushtanging,” “ The Story of the Backs,” etc [All Rights Reserved 1

PART 2.

I have further to remark# that these .women, having no settled residence provided for them, they have no proper means of .taking cam of their weekly ration, and on this, account their provisions are frequently stolen from them, so that many have nothing to eat for two or three days towards the latter end of the week ; therefore they are urged hy the calls of hunger to steal or do things worse. . There is another serious evil 1 wish to state to your Excellency, in consequence of the females being at large in the night to indulge in their vicious habits and passions. There is scarcely one female convict that will go quietly into the service of the most respectable family in the colony. It generally happens that when female convicts arc ordered into the service of private individuals by the magistrate they will in the most positive and open manner refuse to obey his orders, and will sooner live upon bread and water in a solitary cell than leave Parramatta, the scene of their sensual gratifications., till they weary out, by length of lime, the patience of the magistrate, and he knows not what measures to adopt to support his judicial authority, and to carry his necessary orders into execution. Hence, instead of the Government Factory being a house of correction for the abandoned females and a benefit to the colonists and other inhabitants, as a check upon public vices it becomes the grand source of moral corruption, insubordination, and disease, and spreads its pestilential influence throughout the most remote part of the country. On this account there is not a bushel of maize or wheat in the farmer’s barn, nor a sheep in his fold, nor a hog in his stye, nor even a potato, turnip, or cabbage in his garden but what he is liable to be robbed of every night he lies down in his bed, either by his 'own or his neighbour’s servants, to supply the .wants of these abandoned women, to whom the men can gain access at all times in the night, and nothing can prevent them while the women are at large. The number of women employed at the factory under Mr Oakes, the superintendent, is 150. They hate seventy children, and there is not any room in the Factory that can be called a bedroom for the women and children. There are only two rooms, and those are both occupied as workshops! ; they are over the gaol, and are about eighty feet long and twenty wide. In these rooms there are forty - six women employed daily twenty spinning wool upon the common wheel, and twenty-six carding. There are also in them the waipmg machine, etc., belonging to the Factory. These rooms are crowded, all day, and at night such women sleep in them as are confined for recent offences, amongst the wheels, .wool, and cards, and a few others iwho have no means whatever of procuring a better abode. The average number of women who sleep in the

Factory is about thirty on the whole Many of there women have little and some no bedding. They all sleep on the floor. There is not a cradle or bedstead belonging to the Factory. I do not deem it either safe or prudent that even thirty women should sleep in the Factory, whicn has- been crowded all day with working people, could this be avoided, as the air must be bad and contagious. Were the magistrates to compel even half the number of women, with their children, to sleep in the factory which belong to it, thej? could not exist. Not less than 120 women are at large at night to sleep where they cair. . . . -i . I might further notice that many of the male and female convicts are much addicted to inebriety, and that the great number of licensed houses to sell spirituous liquors considerably increases the number of crimes-. There are on the whole, under the two superintendents, Messrs Oakes and Rouse, one hundred and eight men, one hundred and fifty women, and seventy children, and nearly the whole of them have to find lodgings for themselves, when they have performed their Government task. The Governor replied to this letter, stating that three years previously he had written to England, asking to have the necessary buildings erected, but had not up to that time received a reply. It may be fitting here to mention that the relationship between the Governor and Rev. Samuel Marsden was not of the most cordial character. The parson wanted to override the Governor, and there was consequently not infrequently undignified collision. Mr Marsden wrote to headquarters and made a series of complaint's against the Governor’s administration. In one communication to the Home Government the Governor pointed out that Rev. S. Marsden had refused to put into force in his district an order which he had issued concerning the muster of convicts every Sunday morning, with the result that , much more profligacy and depravity existed amongst, the convicts there than in any of the other districts. The clergy-man-magistrate was supported by throe gentlemen, who, said the Governor, “are notorious throughout the colony for * being very arbitrary masters, and embroiled constantly in quarrels- with their servants-, whom they are frequently dismissing on the most frivolous pretences.” And His Excellency summed up thus : —“Some years ago, for the express purpose of preventing severe punishments from being inflicted in the interior districts by magistrates, I directed them to send me quarterly returns of all persons confined, tried, and punished by their 'authority. These returns are now regularly made, and on comparing one with the other, in those received from Rev. Mr Marsden, as senior magistrate at Parramatta, I have invariably found that the punishments inflicted by his authority are much more severe than those of any other magistrate in the colony.*

In proof of this* extraordinary severity I take the liberty of transmitting herewith, for your lordship’s notice, an extract from his return for the last quarter.” The end of it was that the following Government and General Order appeared in the Sydney Gazette : Government House, Sydney, 28th March, 1818. CIVIL DEPARTMENT. His Excellency the Governor is pleased to dispense with the services of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, as Justice of the Peace and Magistrate at Parramatta and its adjoining district. By His Excellency’s Command, J. T. CAMPBELL, Secretary. * The Rev. Samuel Marsden was known amongst the convicts throughout the colony, and especially those who resided within the district over which he had jurisdiction as a magistrate, as “The Flogging Parson.” He was magistrate, .settler, and trader, as well as clergyman, and Mr Wentworth, in his work on the colony, characterised him as w reverend hypocrite, a crafty, turbulent, and ambitious priest, a man of the most rancorous' and vindictive spirit, whose character as a magistrate was scamped with severity, -whose sentences succeeded, both in length and rigour, those of any two magistrates in the colony ; and who had uniformly set his face against the education and civilisation of the aborigines, and who, during a period of six years, had never once visited the institution established for their benefit, although it was next ‘door to his own residence ; and who had opposed the institution of Sunday-schools and of every means proposed for the education and amelioration of the condition of the poor. On the other hand, Mr Marsden was spoken of by his friends and admirers as ori'e of the most, admirable and sainted characters the world had ever seen. He was, said one of them, “in humility as- a child, in vigour of mind and benevolence an angel ; full of enterprise for the good of mankind, and full of faith and reliance on the Divine promises ; unborn empires are dependent upon his exertions, and his name will he the theme of the new world so long as there is a heart to feel reverence or a tongue to utter praise.”- He died in 1838 a very wealthy man.