Official Life in a Penal Settlement

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 14, 30 September 1908, Page 33

Official Life in a Penal Settlement

A VISIT TO LITTLE ROSS ISLAND — ROWED BY MURDERERS — THE LUXURIES OF THE ISLAND— CONVICTS AT WORK—LIVING ON A VOLCANO—LEAVING FOR HOME.

By

HENRY FRANCIS

The article here given is of the greatest interest at the present moment in connection with the deportation to Ross Island of the large number of prisoners convicted of sedition in India, where the Government are suppressing with a firm hand the mischievous efforts to stir up a rebellion. Ross Island is the most important and largest penal settlement under British control, and is likely to be in the public eye considerably during the next few months.—Ed. “Graphic.” HAT do you do with your- • A / selves?” I asked as the vessel ■/*/ steamed slowly into the har- ■ V hour of Port Blair. “It is a dull place,” replied my companion. “We don’t do much except get rowed about the harbour by murderers.” This opened up vistas of exciting possibilities to my mind, and I turned with interest and surveyed the speaker. He belonged to the Andaman Commission which administers the Convict Settlemint, and he was now on his way back from leave. He looked bored; hopelessly and utterly bored. So perhaps even being rowed about a harbour by murderers may lose its charm after a while. We stood on deck together. Litt'e Ross Island was on the port side, rising steeply from the water and crowned with the infantry barracks which resemble a frowning mediaeval castle. To starboard lay the main island with cocoanut palms fringing the sea-shore and the densely wooded hills rising beyond. I was far from sharing my companion’s boredom. Here was the land of the Anthropophagi, “the men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.” Here lived fourteen thousand convicts. Malays, and Chinamen, and all the various races of India and Burma. Fourteen thousand criminals kept in order by a handful of Englishmen and overawed by a garrison of only some four hundred soldiers. How could any one be bored who is privileged to live and work amid surroundings such as these? A land where even the trees and shrubs have flowers; where the scenery would make a background for a fairy tale; where everything is strange and unexpected; and where men go about their daily task in boats rowed by murderers. Compare it with the humdrum life in a London office and who would hesitate to embrace this? Well, apparently my companion would, for he offered to exchange with me For the sake of distinction I will call him Hoggenheimer, for I discovered later that, like the hero of musical comedy, he was bored in the morning, bored in the afternoon, and bored in the evening. ROWED BY MURDERERS. We anchored in the harbour and a boat came off to meet us bringing policement. Lest anv daring convict should conceal himself and effect his escape as a stowaway, the first to come on board on arrival and the last to leave a ship before departure are the police. A little later we were rowed ashore bv convicts. E->ch wore an iron ring round his neck with a wooden tab attached bearing his distinguishing number, for a convict loses his name with his liberty. “Are these murderers?” T asked, anl was told that they were.' Here was T. immediatelv on my arrival, engaged in the exciting adventure of being rowed by murderers. I gazed at them with a strange feeling of awe and T looked for the mark of Cain on their foreheads, but thev bore none. Except for thenshaved heads there was nothing to suggest their awful crime. They had no air of ferocity; on the contrary they were well fed and fairly cheerful specimens of Oriental humanity. You could not walk for five minutes in the streets of Bombay

or Calcutta without meeting men with more repulsive features. My companion noticed my absorbed attention and mistook its cause. “You seem concerned,” he observed. “Well, you see,”. I explained apologetically, “hitherto my experience of murderers has been so very limited. A few soldiers I know, and a judge; but I am not sure that a judge may properly be described as a murderer. He takes human life though not with his own hand.” “A judge a murderer,” Hoggenheimer so I explained that it was meant for a joke. This mollified him but he was not at all sure whether it was seemly to joke about a judge, so I remained silent, keeping a watchful eye on our boat’s crew—just in ease of accidents. We landed at the pier where some convicts were engaged in unloading sacks of rice and flour from barges, passed the tennis courts and the swimming-baths, and climbed a steep road under a dense arch of luxuriant trees. Here we passed more convicts repairing the road, and finally reached the club, where we had breakfast. , 2 I

THE LUXURIES OF LITTLE ROSS ISLAND. The members of the Andaman Com mission have learned to lighten the tedium of their exile in this lonely spot by surrounding themselves with tlie comforts and luxuries of life. This club, where all the bachelors dine, is one of th? most comfortable and best managed in the East. It is a fin*? teak-wood building designed after the pattern of English houses in Burma. There is a good library, and in the reading-room are all the papers and periodicals which any one

could want to read. In the dining-room is a large and very handsome screen of Burmese wood-carving. It is the work of a convict and is said to have occupied him during the whole of a life sentence. The dining table is a magnificent piece of red padouk, a wood for which the islands are noted, and the menu is worthy of the table. Excellent fish of many kinds are caught in the harbour, and prawns in the fresh-water streams. Oysters of gigantic size are plentiful, and when a turtle is caught there is soup worthy of a lord mayor’s banquet. Mutton * has to be imported as sheep cannot live in this

damp climate, but vegetables and fruits grow abundantly. Plantains and pineapples, mangoes and mangostines, furnish a varied dessert. Or if strange dishes are desired sea-slugs can be got and edible birds’-nests dear to the heart of the heathen Chiner?. CONVICTS AT WORK. After breakfast T sat in the cool verandah and smoked the calumet of peace with the civil and military officers of the settlement. Each officer had a certain number of convicts attached to him. Their principal business is to row him from place to place where his duties take him, for nearly all the convict stations are situated round the harbour or up one of the small creeks. Besides this they carry water, hew wood, work in the garden and make themselves generally useful. The work is light compared to that of other convicts and* only men are chosen whose conduct has been exemplary for some years. My friend TToggenheimer verv kindly put one of his men at mvdisposal to carry messages. I looked at the man with some misgiving. “Ts he a murderer?” I inquired. “Of course.” was the reply. “Couldn’t T have some one else instead?” T asked a little diffidently. “Tt is very good of you. but T would much rather have just a common theif or even a burglar.” “We don’t put thieves on this duty. They are much too dangerous.” Hero was a novel view of human nature, but like everything olsp in this- wonderful place it was the result of half a century of experience. Tt is the cunning* of the thief that makes him dangerous, and thp thieves who are sent to Port Blair are the worst of their kind, for ordinary theft is not often punished with transportation: except bv the courts in Burma where sentences rule higher than in any other part of British Tndia. TTTE CENTRAL GAOL. After lunch T was taken across the harbour to Aberdeen where convicts are immured on first arrival. The Central Gaol, three stories high, stands on an eminence and its seven arms stretch out from the central observation tower like the tentacles of some gigantic octopus reaching hungrily for its human prey. Here, opening on to stone flagged corridors. are iron barred' solitary cells. The total length of these passages exceed six miles and every few paces brings you to another cell, each precisely like the last, bare hut for a wooden shelf to sleep on. and each contains one man. Some are Iving down, some walking to ind fro. and some sit gazing at the narrow strip of skv which shows above the l.r’son wall. This place is the most depressing in the whole island. The silence, the interminable corridors, and the solitarv figure in each cell: each at the beginning of his term of penal servitude with years and years of captivitv before him. for none are here for less than seven vears. manv for life. The young men will come out old. and the old men will never taste freedom again. Tt was with relief that T stepped into the open and heard the massive doors c’ose behind mo. In walking hack to the boat we passed the Aberdeen guard-house, beside which grows an enormous tree. Fiftv * ears ago a number of convicts who were engaged on outside work, overpowered their warders and escaped into the forest. Tor some davs thov were at large, hut wore unable to have the

island, where they were harassed by the Adamanese. They were also unable to obtain food after the first supplies were exhausted, and at last were reduced to such straits that they offered to give i hemselves up. The chief commissioner declined to treat with them, swearing that he would hang every man he caught. At length, unable to endure their sufferings, they surrendered themselves unconditionally, whereupon eighty cf them were hanged in one day from this tree.

THE WOMEN’S GAOL. We were next rowed over to the women’s goal, and on the way we passed several other boats, some of which were flying a flag which bore the device of a rising sun. This is the flag of the old

East India Company, and is flown by all boats carrying an officer. The women’s gaol is surrounded by a high wall. On passing through the gate we . ound ourselves in a beautiful garden which runs down to the sea. Green turf is under foot and large shady trees spread their branches overhead; in the

centre is a piece of ornamental water, v hile flowering shrubs, hybiseus and bougainvillaea lend an air of brightness to the place. Never was there anything so unlike a gaol. The living houses and work sheds are dotted about, and passing through the latter we saw the female convicts sewing and weaving under the eyes of their female warders. There was an uir of peace about the long shed where the women sat plying their needles or working easily, almost lazily at their looms. Except that their clothes were coarse, there was nothing to show that they were convicts, for their heads are not shaved. “What have they been convicted of?” I asked. “Most of them for killing their husbands," was tut reply. As a married man, I considered this a most reprehensible practice which ought to be discouraged. We passed through the shed and out through tile other end when, turning a corner, we came upon a young Sikh woman standing at a doorway. I judged her to be about 17 or 18 years of age, and she was of a most remarkable beauty. As we approached she gazed at us under heavy eyelids, and then turned lazily and entered the building. “What is she here for?” I asked, for it never occurred to me that she could be a convict. “Murder,” was the reply. “She was married to a man many years older than herself, and she had a lover. They murdered her husband, and now she is here and her lover over there in Viper Island.” AN “AT HOME.” It was quite late in the afternoon when we returned to Ross Island, where we found the whole official population with their wives and children collected at the little kiosque, where one of the ladies was "at home.” Some had been yachting, ■ some fishing in the harbour, others playing tennis or “squash” or bathing in the swimming baths. Killed as my ears had been all day with the word murder, it came as a shock to see this easy social life amid surroundings of such crime. For all I heard in general conversation, then or later on at dinner,

there might have been no such thing as crime in the world. But underlying all this pleasant social life, the not very arduous duties, the sports and games and varied amusements, there is the ever-present possibility of a dangerous outbreak among the convicts. This is a possibility that is never mentioned, but never lost sight of, and it is only by coming upon little customs which at first sight appear strange that you realise how constantly it is kept in view. The care with which sails and oars are removed from boats and locked up for the night is, of course, to prevent escapes, for convicts have been known in their despair to face the ocean in an open boat. Then, perhaps, the commanding officer of the troops may mention that some of his men are going over to Aberdeen to practise shooting on the rille range. He will suddenly start up with the remark that he has forgotten to get permission from the chief commissioner. You are surprised that permission is necessary for such a trivial matter, until you learn that the chief commissioner may have secret warning of a threatened outbreak, and may require the aid at any moment of every soldier in the garrison. LIVING ON A VOLCANO. Again, you notice near the landingstage on Ross Island, where no con.icts live, a number of buildings which you are informed contain the food supplies of the whole settlement, and early each morning numerous barges, heavily laden with foodstuffs, leave for the various posts on the main island. This appears to be an absurd waste of labour. Why is not the food, on first arrival from India, taken direct to the different places where it is required? This, again, is a precautionary measure. Should a widespread outbreak occur and the convicts gain the upper hand for a time on the mainland, they will be starved into submission within 48 hours. These and many other little things you notice, and gradually the knowledge sinks into your mind that the whole English population is living on a volcano. And they know it; every man and woman in the settlement. Yet in truly British style they live and talk as though no such thing as danger ever entered their thoughts.

I spoke to one mail about it. "You take it very easily,” 1 said. "It is the only way." he replied. “If you let yourself think about it, especially if you are a married man and your wife is out here, it is liable to get on your nerves: and if that happens you are done for.” The departure of the weekly steamer obliged me to curtail my visit and prevented my seeing many things of interest. So at an early hour next morning I stood on deck taking a last look at this beautiful but sad corner of the world. A small boat passed, and il seemed to me that the convict boatmen looked with longing eyes at the vessel which was just about to start. Each was doubtless counting up the years that still remained till he would stand upon her deck returning homeward. And I wondered if any I had seen were victims of erring justice. In countries like India and Burma, where the Indian police are notoriously corrupt, mis-carriages of justice cannot but occur; and, when combined with this, the courts of the letter country give sentences which in England would be called ferocious in their severity, I could not help wondering how many of the fourteen thousand men should never have come here. There must be some: there may be many. LEAVING FOR HOME. At last the signal to depart was given, and as the ship moved slowly from her anchorage, a barge fuil of convicts passed us by, towed by a small steam launch. Near me on the main deck of the mail boat stood two released convicts returning to India. The others on the barge waved their turbans to those on the steamer, and the man waved back farewell. The woman stood a little while gazing at them with an intensity painful to witness; then, with a wild movement, she tore off’ her sari and waved it to them, bursting into an agony of tears. Twenty years had dealt hardly with tier, for she was old and wizened up. But what friendships had she made in these long years of punishment while the convict settlement had gradually become her home? Was it for these she wept, the friends that must remain behind for years, perhaps for

ever? Or did she think of her homecoming: doubting if there would be any • ne to greet the lonely, old ex convict woman ?