OLD TASMANIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 14002, 10 September 1909, Page 3

OLD TASMANIA.

LECTURE BY MR C. S. HOWARD

C. S. Howard gave au "excccdimdy "interesting address in tlie '.trinity Hail lasi night, taking as lus subject "Tasmania"." There was * lairly large audience, and tlieir appreciation-«I i»ir Howard's efforts' was manliestea by me frequent applause and by the liearty manner in which the concluding vote of tlianks was carried, llw lecture was illustrated by a hue lot of Jantern slides, that must hare "taken considerable trouble to collect, and the manipulation of the Jantern was ably carried out by the KeT. T. Stinson. After projecting a map of the Island upon the screen for the purpose of giving his listeners a clear idea of the various places about which he was going to speak, Mr Howard gave some interesting particulars of first I colonisation,of the place.in 1904, and a | view of the first Government house was | . also shown. It was in this building that the courts used to sit in judgment upon the prisoners, and the severity 'of the then, penal code was exemplified by a. return! which snowed, that at one sitting 37 sentences of death were passed and subsequently carried out. In speaking of tho old convict days in Tasmania, the speaker said £ tha£~.shere »was no -doubt that the progre*s*of the "colony had been greatly retarded by the fact of. its .being made, a penal settlement."- A view of Mac-* quarieJ. harbour and Sarah Island elicited gruesome -tales of the horrors ot tUeVconnct discipline, fojr-it was on daraiL-'lsland that the worst classes of felons-were stationed. llie. Uoveru- - nicut ot the day recognised seven classes of criminals. •'. The first class were allowed *p sleep but. of the prison md to worlron Saturdays for them.aclvcv classes 2. and-a-were treated witb less o were kept in irons, class o" were ironed with heavier manacles and separately conimed, whilst class 1, wuieh consisted ot tow most, abandoned and harueued desperadoes; were treated with utiunnkabto' harshness ou Ssarah Island. Sx> terrible were the conditions .under whichV these unfortunate wretches lived that suicide was common, and the convicts would murder their fellow prisoners,'simply and solely with the object ot getting hung and put out of their mberv. x'ictures of the convict snips, whicu were described as "floatingViclls," were shown, and also a tearful arrav of haudcutfs, irons of all weights, and various ghostly instruments of torture. The speaker toM I,» audience n pi "tones ol the oldr convict system, which ranged from the gruesome to the gay, and a pathetic picture was .shown ol the isle ofc the dead, a *"&■**s«* which lie tho bones of over I<,ooo miserable beings, a large f"™?» ia Z° «* Xm were transported for tnmes that nowadays would be considered amplj punished by. a fine or sboA nicnt. Mr Howard's exciting; tales erf the bushranging days were listened to with keen interest, and after shaking about the natives of Tiistnania, m conclusion he took Ins hearers tor a W » spirit through the charming sceuerj in which the favoured island . bounJ*.